The phrase ‘good vibes only’ is often equated with ‘being happy’. The GVO lifestyle takes place in a bright, filtered, instagrammable world apparently free from the ups and downs that come with being human. It ignores how we all lead complex lives with often tangled thoughts. It’s a superficial understanding of each other and the idea of positive thinking. Around a third of us will suffer from a serious mental health problem in our lifetime. We live dual lives – ricocheting between hope and cynicism, love and despair, joy and grief, exuberance and terror, agency and victimhood.
Put happiness as the north star of success.
Being optimistic, grateful, and positive about life absolutely helps you push through hard times and meet your goals. There are psychological studies on gratitude and optimism to back this. Positive thinking really can breed more positivity. You’ll walk taller, talk with more power, feel healthier.
But being optimistic, grateful, and positive about life does not mean that being upset, hurt, disappointed, or frustrated aren’t things you’ll experience. You won’t be – and can’t be – constantly happy. A lot of the time, it’s about accepting your bad days, your grumpy mornings, your life crises, that you have to let it hurt to let it heal.
As Marcus Aurelius said, “The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.”
If you do not recognize and accept and move through the spectrum of those thoughts, happiness becomes limited. You cannot have positive thinking without negative thoughts.
Positive thinking and good vibes are all about action – they’re less about the end state and more about the movement, the striving, the bigger picture beyond our personal gain. On the other hand, ‘good vibes only’ becomes passive. It seems to imagine those involved are already there (wherever ‘there’ is), that the efforts are over, that if you’re not perfectly happy then you’re somehow toxic.
So yes, more than being a hippy-dippy Woodstock mantra that’s captured the internet’s collective imagination, good vibes are in the bass line of a great party; they’re caught amongst the uncontrollable laughter between old friends at three am on a kitchen floor; bubbling the moment before the lights go up on your favorite band. They’re in the warmth on your face as sunlight drips through the trees. They’re staring back as you walk into the bar and catch onto a stranger’s crooked smile and feel, know, they’ll change your life for the better.
Good vibes are also the uplift, the energy, the bright, warm, contented, beautiful feeling you experience because of a particular person, place, or moment. They’re the stories that give you hope.
But they are not the vibes that will tell you that everything is fine or will be better. They are about action, motion, sharing, accepting the messiness of being human, refusing to accept the superficiality or laziness of optimism.
🏔 The dream life
- Working for a DAO
- Have time for friends & family
- Live by the sea/mountains
- Earn a passive income from Defi & not worry about money
- Research new opportunities in crypto
- Talk to smart people and share ideas
- Travel the world
🤝 Values
- Be creative and resourceful.
- Embrace and drive change.
- Celebrate and enjoy the journey.
- We value our people and reward their performance.
- Deliver WOW through UX.
- Create fun and a little weirdness.
- Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.
- Pursue growth and learning.
- Build open and honest relationships with communication.
- Build a positive team and family spirit.
- Do more with less.
- Be passionate and determined.
- Be humble.
- Push yourselves and push others.
- Stretch the possible.