One Simple Key to a Happy 2025

Now with a title like that, this article could be about anything.  “Win the next billion-dollar Powerball!” for example, would for many readers constitute a surefire path toward a happy 2025.  “Stop doing stupid things!” is another excellent suggestion, and one I hope to follow more closely this year than I have in years past.

But instead of those pearls of wisdom (or in addition to them, since I already mentioned them), I’d like to offer a piece of advice I received probably 20 years ago now, when I was just getting started as a professional stand-up comedian.  At that time I was new in comedy, hungry to advance – or, more accurately, just hungry, since most unknown stand-up comics are not raking in the dough – and every time I worked with someone more established than I was I would ask their advice about everything.  Which bookers to contact, which ones to avoid, how to handle hecklers, how to improve my delivery, whether I should move to New York or L.A. – if it could be asked, I’m sure I asked it.

As you might imagine, I got a lot of advice from a lot of people.  Some of it was valuable, and some of it was terrible.  But looking back over 20 years later, the only specific piece of advice I still remember and think about on a regular basis is this:

“Don’t look sideways.”

To be honest, I don’t even remember who gave me that advice, but I do remember why they gave it and what it meant.  I was asking how to advance – more bookings, more fame, more money, standard stuff – and that was somebody’s answer.  Their full answer was more like this:  “Don’t look sideways.  There will always be comedians that you think you’re better than who are farther along in their careers than you are, more famous, whatever.  And if you spend your time looking at them instead of focusing on what you’re doing, then you’ll always be mad.  So don’t look sideways.  Pay attention to what you’re doing, and you’ll be all right.”

Those three words pop into my head on a regular basis, because they apply to a whole lot of things I wasn’t even thinking about twenty years ago.  There are plenty of people occupying positions of leadership, authority, and influence that I do not consider to be particularly worthy of their positions, plenty of people doing things I don’t think they should be doing, plenty of people whose success seems to be based more on luck than on merit.  I could spend every second of my life angry about all of that – or I could spend my time focusing on what I’m doing and who I’m helping and how I’m trying to make the world better.  Whenever I look forward instead of sideways, the noise sort of goes away for a while, and I find myself happier and more fulfilled.

I remember it being good advice when I first heard it, but I think it’s even more powerful advice now, because it’s so much easier to look sideways now than it used to be.  Back when I was doing stand-up comedy, there was no YouTube or TikTok with their ubiquity and promise of instantaneous virality – but now there is, so now you can spend all day long looking sideways at people doing things you don’t think they should be doing or enjoying a level of success you don’t have yourself or don’t think they should have.  It is the reason, I am certain, that so many studies have found a link between online activity and depression – not because being on a computer is bad in and of itself, but because a lot of our computer time is devoted to looking sideways instead of forwards.

So that’s what I’ve got.  As much as you can manage it, don’t look sideways in 2025.  Stay focused on your own goals and vision, look for things and people that help reinforce those goals and vision, and my guess is that you’ll have a great year to look forward to.