The key to happiness, and success with girls, is cultivating a deep inner world.

A person with a deep inner world will be happy no matter what happens and will not have to rely on other people, drugs, material things, and most importantly, women, to make them happy. There is nothing wrong with having those things every once in a while, but you should be just as happy when you don’t have those things. You should be able to take a month off and just spend Friday and Saturday nights having some tea and reading a book. That’s obviously something most people can’t do, but if you get to the point where you have a deep inner world, you will be a lot happier AND a lot more attractive to girls.

Here is why: human beings look at relationships in terms of power. Our ape minds are wired to look at society as a hierarchy, with an “alpha” at the top with all the bananas, and a bunch of people “beneath” the alpha begging for a banana or two. The key to this hierarchy is the control of bananas or, in the human world, any resource. If person A has something person B needs, and person B doesn’t have anything person A needs, person A is the “alpha” and B is the beta. It is ingrained in human beings to look at people who provide things to us as “above” us and people who are needy as “below” us. And of course, the “alpha” is attractive and the beta is not. But here is the key: this “power structure” is all in people’s heads. There is very little anybody has that you actually need, so you can easily avoid being “beneath” anybody. There is no actual alpha male with all the bananas. Of course, you would love to spend a weekend in Miami banging supermodels on Jay-Z's yacht, but you don’t NEED that. So if Jay-Z demands that he be able to treat you like shit you can just not go on his yacht.

Mature, intelligent, enlightened men aren’t awed by other men’s power. In a healthy relationship between men both parties are equal and they are both givers and takers. In a healthy relationship with a woman the men gives certain things and the woman gives certain things. But nobody wants to be around somebody who is needy and constantly taking.

Here is an example: there is nothing wrong with eating Oreo cookies every once in a while. But imagine if somebody was addicted to Oreo cookies and would be miserable if they didn’t have them. A person can only eat so many Oreo cookies in a day, so any person addicted to Oreo cookies will feel like shit 99% of the day, and will only feel happy that 1% of the day when they are actually eating Oreos. Most people aren’t addicted to Oreos like that, but they are addicted to other things, usually women, like that. They are miserable when women don’t like them, and they gain fleeting, temporary happiness when women do like them. That’s a miserable existence, and it’s made even worse by the fact that because you are dependent on this “thing,” anybody with this “thing” can control you and abuse you, whether they are a beautiful woman or a drug dealer.

How does one cultivate a deep inner world?

First, you need to engage in practices that boost your self esteem. A practice is a hobby that you actually get better at and can produce tangible results. Painting, cooking, Crossfit, bodybuilding, stand up comedy, and getting good at your job are all practices. Watching movies, being a “foodie,” and playing video games are not practices. There is nothing wrong with those things, but they won’t boost your self-esteem.

Secondly, you need to stimulate yourself intellectually. Read some philosophy, watch some documentaries, meet some cool people. This isn’t a “suggestion” – this is an absolute requirement. Humans have an innate need to stimulate their mind, and if you don’t actively seek out intellectually enriching stuff you will end up stimulating your mind with horseshit, like pop culture nonsense or conspiracy theories or whatever else dumb people are into nowadays. Again, there is nothing wrong with pop culture or conspiracy theories, but that can’t be the full extent of your intellectual stimulation.

Third, you need to know yourself and feel comfortable with yourself. If you have weird unresolved issues or childhood traumas, go to a therapist. Stop hating yourself. You may have flaws, but you can either work on improving yourself or just wallow in how much you suck. Think about yourself objectively, rather than how others see you. I’ve always been into space, but my friends would make fun of me because they were worried I would look like a nerd. But now, I realize, there’s nothing wrong with being into space. Or dinosaurs. Or 19th century literature. And to be completely honest, one of my most attractive things I can do in front of a girl is go on a rant about space.

Fourth, you need to learn to enjoy the small things. It is cliché, but crucial. The secret to not letting women control your happiness is by enjoying lunch, smelling the flowers every once in a while, and just staring up and admiring the stars. Society makes us think that a “successful” person is rich, good looking, famous, etc... but the real key to happiness is enjoying the ordinary parts of life. When you wake up in the morning and have breakfast, do you really enjoy it? When you go out with your friends, do you actually have fun or are you just going through the motions just to look cool? If you are driving in the country, do you admire the trees and flowers? At any given moment in the day, are you enjoying what you are doing, or are you thinking about something else? Most people only derive happiness from the “spikes” in their life – music festivals, drugs, sex, crazy movies – but truly happy people derive pleasure from everything – a good night’s sleep, a walk in their neighborhood, a conversation with a good friend, a good day at work, a huge satisfying shit, etc... Of course, you can still enjoy the “spikes” – hell, I just spent 3 days raging at a music festival, but I am just as happy now that I’m at work on a Monday. Part of enjoying the small things is being good at day to day life: get enough sleep, eat well, keep a clean room, etc...

I have a few friends that are celebrities, and some are MISERABLE. They enjoy the fun parts of their job like being on stage or banging models, but the rest sucks. They hate traveling, they hate being recognized by “fans” (which are usually just weirdos), they hate pretentious Hollywood people, they hate the instability of their career. Who do you think enjoys life more? The rock star who spends an hour on stage every night happy and the rest of the time doing drugs and depressed? Or the accountant that has a kind of boring job but enjoys the small things?

Fifth, you need to surround yourself with positive people. Find yourself some good, solid friends you can rely on. A lot of shitty people, including flaky girls, don’t have any real solid friends, so they are just desperate for any type of human connection. And because none of their relationships are truly satisfying, they jump from shitty person to shitty person, all the while acting shitty themselves. Don’t be like that.

Sixth, read good fiction. Again, this is not a suggestion – this is a requirement. Human beings can only learn about themselves and the world through stories. You can either feed yourself intelligent, interesting, deep stories, or you can gossip about people and get involved in petty real-life drama. Take it from me – I resisted reading fiction for a long time because I thought it was a waste of time. I now realize that almost any problem you have or pain you are going through has been written about in some novel by a brilliant writer on a deeper, more intelligent level than you can possibly imagine. Girl acting like a total bitch? Already seen it in a Oscar Wilde novel. Friend backstabbed you? Shakespeare. Etc...

Seventh, realize that the “outer world” stuff like people’s validation and banging hot girls is not that great. Sex with a hot girl is fun, but at the end of the day, you are just putting your dick in a wet hole. It’s amazing if you think about the misery some people put themselves through to put their dick in a wet hole. Once you bang a few 9s or 10s, the magic disappears and you realize they are just people with all the fears, insecurities and weaknesses you have. I would even go so far as to say that the main thing that attracts people to 9s and 10s is ego boost, and, like the Oreo addict, they spend 95% of their day miserable for that 5% of the day where they feel cool cuz they’re with a "10."

Finally, and this is MOST IMPORTANT. You need to cultivate a sense of dignity in yourself. JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING. That’s the only fucking reason. There is nothing wrong with being confident because you are smart, hard working, successful, etc..., but at the end of the day you should also know that you are entitled to a certain amount of respect just because you are a human being. The main reason people become needy and pathetic is because they see others as above them and will do anything to get those other people’s approval. But like I said, the power structure is all in your head. If you just stop seeing yourself as being beneath people, you will no longer need their validation. And you won’t have to beg to be their bitch and you will no longer let them cross boundaries and treat you like shit.

All that said, realize that your inner world is NOBODY’ S FUCKING BUSINESS. You shouldn’t be building your inner world to impress anybody or to make anybody like you. If you do, you’ve missed the whole point. You should read Hemingway and Oscar Wilde to expand your own mind, not so you can drop those names at a cocktail party. In fact, I don’t tell anybody about my inner world unless they really deserve it and similarly have a deep inner world. You need to realize that most people don’t have a deep inner world. Most people are still reliant on other people, drugs, and society's dumb fads to be happy. And they don’t have that inner sense of dignity that makes them refuse to be treated like shit. It’s a sad truth, but most hot girls still want a guy with a flashy outfit, a Lamborghini, and a beach house in Miami. Sorry, but it’s true.

What I just described as a happy person with a deep inner world will sound like a boring dork to most people. If you walked up to most girls at a flashy nightclub in Miami and told them your idea of a good time is watching a nature documentary while sipping on green tea they would run away to find the first trap DJ with cocaine. But having a deep inner world will make you more attractive. You will be less desperate and you will enforce your boundaries. If a girl starts acting like a jerk to you, you will not hesitate to go home and put on a nature documentary because you are just as happy doing that. When girls see that you aren’t phased by stupid shit like celebrities, money or their tits they will slowly realize that there is something different about you. And more importantly, they will be more likely to make a deep emotional connection with you because you won’t look like a thirsty, manipulative loser who will say anything to fuck them. You will give less of a fuck because you aren’t trying to conform. You’ll have more fun. Your dick will grow (jk on that one).

And finally, having a deep inner world doesn’t prevent you from having an outer world. I will still go to a music festival dressed like a banana, get wasted and jam out all weekend. It’s part of the beauty of life. When I meet girls I will still chat about pop culture nonsense, joke around about being an egomaniac, and do lines in the bathroom (allegedly).