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From 2009 to 2016, Coca-Cola’s tagline was “open happiness.”
As average consumers, we're not supposed to question such things. We’re supposed to shrug and think, "That makes sense. I drink a cold Coke, I feel good. I like feeling good. That's happiness, I guess?"
Doctor Robert Lustig is not, however, your average consumer.
An endocrinologist who treats patients with metabolic disorders—many of whom are now children with "adult" diseases like type II diabetes—Lustig can't let such slogans slide. To him, these aren't innocent catchphrases. They're evidence of a calculated deception being perpetrated by society's most powerful entities: Big Food, Big Tech, and Big Pharma.
In his 2018 book The Hacking of the American Mind, Lustig exposes how these industries deliberately blur the line between happiness and pleasure. They sell us products—from sugar water to social connections—with the promise of happiness… when all those things are capable of doing is doling out fleeting moments of pleasure.
And this bait-and-switch hasn't just inflated our waistlines or screen time numbers. It's created a devastating societal crisis. As Lustig puts it:
“The consequences have been dire: dual epidemics of addiction (too much pleasure) and depression (not enough happiness).”
So why is this relevant? Why start a webbook about habits and productivity with talk of happiness and pleasure?
Well, in the intro webpage, I made a pretty bold claim: our vices provide shortcuts to survival-affirming rewards, tricking our brains into thinking we're thriving when we're not.
The result? Suppressed motivation—that familiar "ugh, I just don't feel like it" feeling when we sit down to work.
This traps us in a procrastination cycle: a lack of motivation leads to time-wasting, which further kills motivation, leading to more time-wasting, and so on.
