Everyone tells you to do what makes you happy. But few people say not to do what makes you suffer.

Maybe it goes without saying. But I don’t think it does.

Often in life we get caught up focusing all our efforts on increasing the upside, trying to win, getting rich, succeeding, and pay almost no attention to doing the opposite: not losing, avoiding financial ruin, evading failure. In our quest to constantly remain optimistic and think positively, we fail to think nearly enough about decreasing the downside, mitigating the risks. By never allowing ourselves to imagine the worst, we deprive ourselves of the chance to engage in preventative measures. We end up hoping for the best without preparing for the worst.

Aiming to not be destitute is easier than trying to get rich. Trying not to be wrong is easier than striving to always be right. It’s easier to dodge disappointment than it is to stumble upon happiness because we almost always have a clearer picture of what we don’t want than what we do.

There is another side to the coin, of course. Trying not to lose usually isn't a good way to win. But too often in life, we assume winning is everything, when in fact not losing is most of the battle.

Psychologists have long known that pain counts for twice as much as pleasure, that losses are felt twice as dearly as gains. After a loss of just $10, most people would need to win $20 to feel like they broke even.

A biologist who studies evolution might explain this finding by telling you a story about how in bygone eras, remembering which berries were the tastiest wasn’t half as important to survival as remembering which ones made everyone sick.

There’s a quote near the beginning of Rounders, the movie about playing Texas Hold ‘em that kickstarted the poker craze in the early 2000s, that gets at the same idea. “In Confessions of a Winning Poker Player, Jack King said, ‘Few players recall big pots they have won—strange as it seems—but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of their career.’ Seems true to me, ‘cause walking in here I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking how I lost it.”

We are all poker players deep down. We remember our toughest losses in the most vivid and visceral detail. The times we got hurt. The times our hearts were broken. The times we fucked up.

When I was six years old I stepped on a board with two dozen rusty nails sticking out of it that I used as a cultivator while pretending to farm in my sandbox. I still remember the sound of my scream as I ran to the house in agony.

We remember the bad stuff: the bee stings, the needle pricks, the hurtful words, the unspared feelings, the abuse, the shameful mistakes, the things we wish we didn’t see, and the embarrassing moments when we should’ve known better. The worst memories take the longest to fade. Trauma sticks like glue.

The point is that negatives tend to count for more in the calculus of life. The absence of pain counts for more than the presence of pleasure. Avoiding poverty matters more to your happiness than making millions.

That’s why the best strategy for making life go better is often to try to prevent it from going worse.

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner, is famous for saying that “It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”

Warren Buffett’s first rule of investing is to never lose money. And his second rule is to never forget the first. If your investments gain 10%, then lose 10%, back and forth, year after year, you eventually wind up at zero, not $80 billion dollars.

It's easier to break things than it is to make things. Setbacks are hard to recover from. Sometimes there is no recovering. Regrettably, some losses are permanent, which is all the more reason to pay close attention to protecting against the downside.

Unfortunately, it’s not something we’re particularly good at. How many people wait to start exercising and eating better until their first scare with death? How many have enough saved for retirement? How many times have you gone to the doctor when you were healthy rather than sick?

Though we know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, we continue to chase highs when we should be steering clear of lows. We resign ourselves to taking the good with the bad, when we should be minimizing the worst of it, making life, as much as possible, all upside.

When I was depressed, I started exercising, eating better, getting outside, talking to my friends more frequently, and reading and writing every day. When I am happiest these days? When I’m consistently doing all those things.

Do what makes you happy, for sure. Go nuts. Have a ball. Just don’t forget to not do things that are going to make you suffer.

You know what they are.

Steele