The Radical Act of Being Present | Why happiness is a practice, not a prize
Have you noticed the grind gets all the glory these days? The constant doing, achieving, optimizing—as if joy is something we earn after we've checked enough boxes. But what if the secret to a meaningful life isn't in the big, hairy, audacious goals? What if it's in the walks with your dog, the morning coffee, the front porch conversations that don't lead anywhere except deeper connection?
Devin C. Hughes, author, speaker, and happiness habit evangelist, joined me recently on the Shaping Freedom podcast to challenge everything we think we know about joy, success, and what it means to show up fully in our own lives. From his raw memoir Contrast: A Biracial Man's Journey to Desegregate His Past to his work helping organizations create cultures where humans can actually be human, Devin's message cuts through the noise: happiness isn't a destination—it's a daily practice.
Our conversation wasn't about pushing harder. It was about the radical act of being present in a world that profits from your distraction.
Here are three insights from our talk that shifted my perspective—and why they matter when you're trying to live authentically while everyone expects constant performance:
1. Happiness is hygiene, not luck.
"When I looked at the research that the happiest people on the planet, they just had happiness habits. It was happiness hygiene," Devin shared. We brush our teeth daily without question, but we treat joy like some mystical thing that either happens to us or doesn't.
Devin's non-negotiable? Gratitude bookends. He starts and ends each day intentionally grateful—not for Instagram-worthy moments, but for the ordinary magic of another day. "I'm very intentional about how I start my days and I end my days," he said. "I'm a better human when I'm in a better place emotionally. I'm a better dad, coworker, human."
You don't have to wait for happiness to find you. You can practice your way into it, one grateful moment at a time.
2. You can't stop the storm, but you can choose your gear.
Devin's father, a ninth-grade dropout from Mullins, South Carolina, gave him wisdom that cuts deeper than any MBA: "Son, there is no such thing as bad weather. Only inadequate clothing." And then this: "Don't try to control the storm. You control how you show up."
Life is going to life—personally, professionally, globally. The storms are inevitable. But Devin carries this backstory everywhere: "This is just a storm and I'm built for this." Not built to avoid difficulty, but built to adapt, flex, grab an umbrella. "The storm will be the storm," he said. "I just got to show up differently."
This isn't toxic positivity—it's practical resilience. You own your response. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is acknowledge that you're in a storm and dress accordingly.
3. Being a "work in progress" is where the magic happens.
Growing up biracial in segregated communities with parents battling addiction, Devin could have carried that trauma forward unchanged. Instead, he chose to interrupt the cycle. "I felt like if I wasn't constantly grinding, curating, iterating, doing that I wasn't maximizing my gifts," he reflected. But here's what shifted everything: choosing progress over perfection.
His dad's words again: "Progress not perfection." When Devin became a father to four daughters, he didn't pretend to have it figured out. "I've never been here before," he said about navigating his daughters now in their twenties. "I don't have a predicate. I don't have cliff notes." So he asks his kids for feedback—literally uses "start, stop, continue" conversations.
As Devin puts it, he's "a work in progress"—and that's exactly where the power lies. In a world obsessed with having it all together, he found freedom in the spaces between—the front porch conversations, the walks with no agenda, the messy, beautiful work of being human. Because we're all just trying to figure it out. The difference is whether we're willing to stop grinding long enough to actually be present for the life we're living.
TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)
Happiness is a practice, not luck. The happiest people don't wait for joy—they cultivate it daily through simple habits like gratitude. Treat happiness like hygiene: essential, intentional, and non-negotiable.
Life's gonna life—but your response is yours. Life will throw challenges at you. The power isn't in avoiding difficulty but in choosing how you show up. Adapt, flex, change your approach—but don't waste energy trying to control what you can't.
Growth beats having it all figured out. You don't need to have it all figured out to make a meaningful impact. Stay open to feedback, keep growing, and remember that being a "work in progress" is exactly where the magic happens.
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