One of my favorite recent quotes comes from Arthur Brooks:

“Happy people love people, use things, and worship the divine; unhappy people use people, love things, and worship themselves.”

Love people. Don’t use them.

Using people rarely looks as obvious as exploiting someone. More often, it looks like only calling when you need something, networking exclusively with people who can help you, keeping someone around because of what they provide, or treating attention and affection as proof of your own worth.

We all slip into relating to people transactionally, often in small ways, without even realizing it.

A useful question to ask yourself regularly: Who in my life have I started relating to primarily in terms of what they can do for me?

Use things. Don't let them use you.

There is nothing wrong with money, watches, houses, cars, clothes, promotions, or follower counts. I like plenty of those things.

The deeper problem is that things can slowly become extensions of the self. We stop merely enjoying them and start using them to stabilize identity: the job becomes evidence of our competence in every area of life. Our bodies show the world how disciplined we are and our follower counts mean we are worthy of being loved.

That is a fragile arrangement because anything capable of confirming an identity can also threaten it. Now the promotion matters more than the work itself. Someone else’s nicer house makes you envious. Losing status ultimately feels like losing part of yourself.

The end goal is to enjoy what you have deeply while keeping your sense of self independent from it.

Ask yourself: What thing am I currently expecting to make me feel fundamentally different once I get it?

Worship the divine. Don’t worship yourself.

Psychologically, I think of “the divine” as whatever sits at the top of your value hierarchy. It is the thing you ultimately organize your life around, whether that is God, family, truth, status, achievement, comfort, service, money, or yourself.

That hierarchy reaches much further into daily life than we usually realize. Our goals help determine what we pay attention to, what information we filter out, what opportunities we notice, and what feels relevant in the first place. Neuroscience has shown that attention is heavily shaped by top-down goals and by learned value, even down to which parts of the visual environment receive priority.

In other words, what you place at the top of the hierarchy begins organizing everything underneath it.

If status sits near the top, you become highly sensitive to who is ahead of you, who respects you, and where you rank. If comfort sits at the top, inconvenience feels disproportionately important. If family sits at the top, your attention naturally catches opportunities to provide, protect, and be present. If truth sits at the top, you become more willing to notice information that threatens what you already believe.

Even something as basic as where you look is influenced by what your brain has learned is relevant and valuable.

That is why the word “worship” is so useful here. Whatever you consistently treat as highest does not remain an abstract belief. It trains your attention, organizes your priorities, and quietly shapes thousands of downstream decisions.

So here is the audit I have been using:

Where am I using someone I should be loving?

What am I loving that should simply be something I use?

What currently sits at the top of my value hierarchy, and is my life becoming organized around something I actually want to worship?

Most of us probably live on both sides of this quote depending on the day.

The goal is to notice which direction you are moving.