Happiness is overrated. Having your own individual culture center around self-satisfaction limits your scope as a person. Being responsible, cultivating your abilities, furthering your beliefs and values, can make you pretty miserable, but nobody gets in the history books for being happy.
Also there's nothing more fake than a "happiness expert".
This was exactly my attitude until I read the article…. I think it agrees with you, but goes a bit deeper, e.g. in the importance of being authentic and not suppressing negative emotions.
This is an example of where English falls down. Your definition of happiness appears to be almost the complete opposite of the definition used in the article.
This is also very well trod ground, Plato did a good job on it.
Plato would have called your definition of happiness hedonism.
He would have called the articles definition of happiness eudaimonism, and that lines up pretty good with what you said can make you miserable. Plato and happiness scientists generally agree that eudaimonism is the best route to long term happiness.
Perhaps we should just stop using the word happiness and use the words pleasure and satisfaction instead.
Yes! Often satisfaction and pleasure are in a conflicting relationship.
When you ask a software developer that has worked for 3 years on a "successful" side project. He will probably tell you that it cost him lots of evenings he could have been seeing friends or sleeping. Yet that same person may feel very satisfied for having done so.
Still. It is difficult territory. Dissatisfaction is often leads to action that can then lead to "societal success". Should you be dissatisfied then? The Tony Robbinses of the world might say yes!
> Plato and happiness scientists generally agree that eudaimonism is the best route to long term happiness.
I think you're misconstruing this a bit. Plato and some happiness scientists see eudaimonia as superior to "affect" (the actual emotional state of "happy"). One is not a route to the other.
Daniel Kahneman is, as far as I can make out, a hedonist and so, fwiw, am I. To me eudaimonia is just smugness
Happiness is similar to the word "freedom" , in that it can mean anything to anyone (with freedom used in equal measure by rebels, despots and used car salesmen). Words like these are more used for emotional aesthetics rather than a descriptive expression. These words are so persistent in our culture because they essentially have no meaning. It doesn't matter how the article or "happiness experts" define happiness because their definitions are circumstantial and irrelevant. The meaningless of the word "happiness" remains intact. It's closer to a secular faith than an actual phenomenon. Yes you might've felt happy but a persistent state of "happiness" is more a sign of a manic episode than an actual reality you can buy for yourself or hire someone (like the ridiculous people in the article) to achieve.
> nobody gets in the history books for being happy.
“Getting in the history books” aka fame is per definition never going to happen for most people. An important part of growing up is recognizing that you are neither rich nor famous and properly won’t be. General life advice needs to take that into account.
Funny that yard work didn't make the list, it works for me. A decade and a half ago I bought a rural multi-acre densely wooded lot. In the last few years I've made a habit out of going out to tame it daily with chainsaws, wheelbarrows, rakes, etc. Usually less than an hour at a time, on a lunch break from my remote job.
It was a royal slog that I dreaded in the beginning. But from the start it was a mood-improver, and subconsciously I caught on, because I've come to look forward to it and to enjoy it for itself. It gets me outside and in motion, with a reasonable amount of exertion. Doing it without hurting myself requires enough attention to pry me away from my other problems. It relaxes and somehow elevates rather than detaching me. The cleaning up satisfies my subclinical OCD in a deep way. Yard work has become a privilege that came with this property rather than a responsibility and chore.
So now the job is almost done and I'm looking longingly over the fence at my neighbors' wild yards. Maybe I'll make a deal with them, or maybe find some other way of generating happiness from being outdoors and working hard with natural randomness. Like gardening.
Gardening is a super-hobby: It hits the exercise, creativity, and nature aspects. If you do it with a partner that's time outside the house you're spending with family. It's also free, and at the end of it you typically get the sense of accomplishment. Can't say it better than Voltaire: "Il faut cultiver notre jardin"
Gardening is free? Maybe if you invest 3-12 months in making your own compost first, inherit a few tools, have a good amount of arable soil on your property, and collect seeds/cuttings from friends who are already accomplished gardeners. Otherwise, it adds up. Still worth it though!
Herbs and tomatoes and peppers are worth growing yourself and can be grown in a small space. Everything else leads to the most expensive veggies you've ever eaten and they're really not better than something from the farmers market or even grocery store.
In general, I agree, but I think it depends on the context of the yard work. If you live in a rural area, cosmetic upkeep is optional, and you can work on things at your own pace. If you live in a "standard" exurban neighborhood, constant upkeep can be a chore, especially if you want to use your limited daylight hours after work to do anything else.
In other words, if you have control over aspects of the work, it's more likely to make you happy. This seems to be consistent with the findings in the article.
I agree with you and can relate. A few years ago I bought the lot (just 0.24 acres) behind my house and over time have cleaned it up. It was a lot of work, but it was something I looked forward to doing and really enjoyed. I now have it looking like I want, so there's not much left to do. I wish there was an adjoining lot for sale so that I could repeat the process.
I was only able to afford a very small garden where i am but gardening definitely has helped me as well. One day I dream of moving to own a multi acre plot as well.
There's small elements of stress to it but they're manageable, not too consequential and non imposing like job related ones or the like.
My courgettes and pumpkin got mildew on them and i couldn't help it but they still kept producing what they could and i had more than i used regardless.
I could not keep my tomato plants from getting blown over, keep up with the cutting work, etc....but i still had an abundance of those.
For folks who work in virtual worlds (AKA computing), outdoor work is an ideal way to recharge your batteries. Not only is the physical exercise a win, but strong sunlight lifts your mood, even when it's cloudy (and especially if you have Seasonal Affective Disorder). It helps me, anyway. The more physical the work (shoveling snow, splitting logs), the better.
I agree that yard work is phenomenal for mood, but it is sort of captured in the article's list. I see yard work as a combination of light exercise, time spent in nature, and meditation. In your case, it's a personal hobby too!
As an aside to your last thought, there's a local teacher in my town that offers to paint home interiors in the summer time. He expects customers to do all the prep work and acquire the paint, but he will show up with brushes, rollers, etc. He does charge a fee, but it's much lower than any professional. When I asked why he does it, he simply answered that he loves painting and finds it relaxing, so he decided to do it on the side to help locals out. Maybe you could do something similar for yards in the neighborhood.
> If anyone knows the secret to happiness, it’s surely the people who have dedicated their careers to studying it. The first thing they’ll tell you? Being happy all the time isn’t a feasible—or even desirable—goal.
If the happiness experts had said happiness is overrated and to not bother, would time have written that?
How does one qualify as a happiness expert? Is there a post-intervention survey?
I saw a TED talk about the happiest man on the planet.
It was a French molecular biologist who became a Buddhist monk and spent 25 years meditating.
They tested his brain with an fMRI machine and found that he was 4 standard deviations above the average when it came to the place in his brain where they suspected happiness stemmed from.
IMO he’s qualified as a happiness expert. Not sure about these writers though.
I would think a lot of long time meditators are much more in touch with reality and accept the past and don't worry about the future. So, I would expect them as a group to be much more likely to be happy. I would expect all enlighted individuals to be happy.
You are right, there's actually two and a half millenia of people in eastern traditions dedicating their entire lives to 1. Achieving happiness, and 2. Developing a methodology for achieving that state to others. It's called Buddhism, and if anyone, they are the happiness experts.
The western scientific tradition is just starting in this journey (about 50 years of scientific studies exist on people that are considered high meditation achievers).
One of the main ideas of buddhism lacks a good translation, but it is in the fact that understanding something intellectually is NOT the same as understanding something experientially. That's apparent in the way this article is laid out. Just because you have been studying happiness doesn't mean you experience it. This difference in types of knowledge is key, and so foundational at the highest levels of buddhist tantra that working with the intellect is often seen as an impediment. That's why Buddhism is seen as a practice above a religion or philosophy.
Categorizing Buddhism as achieving happiness doesn't seem accurate to me at all. Enlightenment is in some ways similar to happiness but they are distinct things and getting too attached to happiness wouldn't help you get enlightened. For instance Buddhism traditionally teaches that reincarnating as a god after accumulating good karma is an overall negative thing since the happiness of being in heaven will keep you from pursuing Buddhism and ultimately be transitory.
Another mistranslation. However, the state of enlightenment (at the tantra level) can be described as a state of joy or bliss that is orders of magnitude beyond any transitory happiness that we might feel when we're not enlightened.
But to your point, you are right, looking for transitory moments of happiness is not the same as working towards enlightenment.
> If anyone knows the secret to happiness, it’s surely the people who have dedicated their careers to studying it
Just because you study something doesn't mean you live the life. There was a fun little study that showed professional ethicists don't act particularly more ethical than the average person:
Some are! The ones who had rich parents anyway. Turns out an important habit of successful people, often left off these lists, is being born into wealth.
Wealthy people teach their kids how to manage money for growth and/or preservation.
It's frighteningly easy for someone who has no experience with wealth to squander a fortune very quickly. Look at big lottery winners who spend it all and end up in bankruptcy.
It's more than just inheriting money from your parents; they teach you how to keep it.
They may not teach their kids how to manage a family office or a million-dollar stock portfolio, but working-class poor families can teach kids to study hard, hold onto a job, avoid crippling addictions, and save money. If you manage to nail all these, it's relatively easier making the leap to middle class or upper-middle class in one lifetime.
I have spent a few years in yoga, self help and spiritual circles and met quite a few well-known "experts" in that area. Since then I am extremely wary of any advice that comes from self-help and spiritual gurus. They are very good at giving advice to others but when you get closer to them you realize that a lot of them are very unhappy people, often vindictive and basically plain assholes. But they know how to say things that sounds good.
I think the truly happy people don't go around and tell others how to be happy. They just are happy.
> I think the truly happy people don't go around and tell others how to be happy. They just are happy.
On the other hand, people who are happy/content see a lot of pain and suffering in other people and might wish to impart some of their own wisdom into the world. At least that’s how I feel sometimes. But if someone is trying to make a profit from the information or advice then it’s probably not coming from a good place and less likely to be legitimately useful.
so when they mention in the article happiness is probably both something you actively do but also a byproduct of your environment. i imagine when you ask experts on happiness who presumably are happy themselves about their habits, the causal relation cuts boths ways? like if you are inherently unhappy but start doing these habits your environment will improve and you'll become happier somewhat while you still may not feel "100% happy" bc these habits don't engage with that internal mode of happiness?
I went into more detail in another comment, but tldr I’ve experimented in the past with dropping some of these activities to see how it affects my mood. Above all else, sleep, exercise, and time spent in nature are essential to my personal happiness. Without these things my mood drops pretty quickly. Therefore I believe that someone who doesn’t already get these things would see an improved mood by adding them.
I've read "The Happiness Advantage" on (then-)emerging field of positive psychology, which I strongly recommend to anybody interested in improving their mental wellness. It's not too big, well structured, and contains both research as well as practical advice/techniques. I also noticed how aligned it is with cognitive-behavioural therapy.
Did anyone else find it telling that "Engage with support groups or therapist" was the activity with the lowest engagement? Anecdotally this makes sense to me; the people I'm close with who struggle the most with finding day-to-day happiness are usually the ones who spend the most time in therapy. Not that the relationship is causal, of course, it's more just interesting to observe that lots of therapy doesn't seem necessary to maintain a positive baseline.
You don't think there's a causal relationship between being unhappy and seeking therapy?
Also the goal of therapy is to get to a place where you can quit it, so it makes sense that once people are more content with their lives they wouldn't go anymore.
The goal of therapy should be to get you to a point where you can quit. The therapist's goal may or may not be (I prefer the "may not be") to get you to a point where you can quit. I am not saying that it is in the interest of therapists to keep someone in therapy, and thus pay them, for as long as possible, but at the same time there seems to be, especially for some therapists, an almost endless reservoir of people who have been led to believe that talk therapy is much more useful than it is empirically. I don't think that the majority of therapists are worried about losing a paying customer due to a significant improvement in their mental condition.
The therapist provides a service with some practice that hopefully leads to some goal, but without excessive professional and emotional investment in the outcome of therapy. After the 50th minute of the session, however, you are on your own.
What about spending time with family in the house/in general? While there's data about spending time outside the house, it seems quite low and infrequent. Is it safe to assume that true happiness comes from putting yourself first and then your family?
Would be interesting to see what constitutes a happiness expert and what type of work they do. I sincerely worry that people who sell happiness(for profit) are those who themselves are most unhappy.
No article loaded for me, so I risk a "didn't read, but comment anyway" situation.
Quite a few years ago, there was the "Seven habits of highly successful people" (or something similar) fad. The idea being if only you can copy these habits, you, too will be successful. Except it doesn't work that way. These habits are more a symptom of the sort of personality that is successful, rather than a cause of success.
My personal impression is that people have a "happiness set point" that is more or less a hardwired part of their personality. Chronically happy people will be so even if their life isn't so great, and chronically unhappy people will be so even with good success metrics. Trying to move your happiness set point by emulating habits of happy people may not work very well, no better than trying to tell a chronically depressed person "just cheer up" or a chronically overweight person "just eat less".
That might be true up to a point, but I suspect that enough adversity, poverty and physical and mental ill health can crush the sunniest of dispositions.
Anecdotal counterpoint: I’ve always been a very happy person, and I coincidentally tend to do most of the activities the experts listed. I’ve also experimentally dropped some of the activities purposefully from time to time to see how they affect my mood (in hopes of getting some free time back).
Sleep, exercise, and time spent in nature are the essentials for me: when I don’t have time for them, everything goes to shit. I’ve found that my mood also decreases pretty drastically when I don’t work on hobbies. I also need to at least talk to friends/family even if just on the phone or texting. Meditation is sort of in the middle, with only a slight affect on my happiness, so I dropped it. Prayer doesn’t do much for me, and I’ve never tried therapy. Spending time on social media, news, and/or Reddit completely destroys my mood.
That’s my personal hierarchy. The major points align with the “experts.” And IME, the activities do affect my mood, not necessarily the other way around.
The problem is working out the causation there. If I'm getting less sleep and exercise for instance, it's probably because I'm either really busy, really stressed, or otherwise sick. So I'm less happy at those times but am I less happy because of the lack of sleep or the other factor that's causing me to lose sleep. The answer is probably some of both but if you only look at some of the factors you are going to overstate their importance.
That’s why I experimented: to work out the correlation/causation issue. When I was experiencing a long period of stable happiness, I would take away one of these things to see if it would affect my happiness, all other things being equal. Some of them did, so I’m assuming causation for those.
I use this technique of dropping things that I enjoy modestly but suspect may not be worth the cost. Among other things, it got me to stop keeping alcohol in the house. The nice thing about these experiments is that you realize that there are many things that are enjoyable but that can be eliminated without much overall consequence. This makes me less attached to most things (even the things that feel like non-negotiables like exercise) because I know that I can adapt to their absence. Of course one should avoid falling into the trap of extreme asceticism too, but I suspect few of us have that problem.
There are 2 main things that make us not happy:
1. not accepting the past.
2. fear of the future.
One can't change the past, so being angry, having grief, or whatever emotion one has where one is not accepting of the past feeds negative energy; just accept what has happened in the past because it can't be changed. FYI - think of life as a movies that one has a unique view of; nobody else has the view you do, appreciate it and be greatful for the experience. Also, one can't predict/control the future, so spending time being fearful of it also feeds negative energy. Accept that the future will bring exactly what one needs to grow. Be happy by accepting the past and not worrying about the future.
Think of being optimistic or (positive) as a placebo that one has a positive view about. Is it realistic that one can be happy and have a negative view about the future? If one has a positive view; wouldn't it follow that one is more likely to be happy. Also, if something most people would be considered bad happens and one thinks that it is helping them grow, one is more likele to accept what just happend. If one does not accept the past, there is no way to be happy. So, think of it as prepping to accepting a past that might be painful or most would consider bad.
That's an interesting take. In my case, I'm proud of my past and have no regrets. I'm also incredibly excited for the future. But I'm displeased with the present and have to constantly remind myself of the "means to an end".
Currently stuck in a field that I don't enjoy, but I'm another year away from completing my master's in the field I would rather be in. But, I gotta pay the bills
1. everyone's happiness is different. Families are the extreme: I know lots of people in all 4 quadrants of kids/nokids, happy/unhappy. Western culture says that kids=happiness and no-kids=emptiness, but I'm here to tell you that's total and obvious BS. Hobbies are another silliness, again all 4 quadrants, INCLUDING miserable people addicted to their hobbies or using them to hide from unfulfilled lives. Sleep? all 4 quadrants, INCLUDING miserable people who sleep. Excitement? Education? etc etc etc - all 4 quadrants for everything.
2. people are fulfilled/happy/energetic/etc or less, at different times in their lives, and it's really true that sometimes you need to experience a period to find happiness in the next ("growth"). Eat, pray, love, kumbaya, and so on. One of my dearest and most happy/fulfilled friends recently lost his wife and he's miserable, barely holding on - but he recognizes this grieving period and leaning in on his Jewish heritage and year of mourning. Also, times of great learning can be miserable while you're going through them.
3. the survey was around weekly habits, but I've found that my happiness requires "everything in moderation, even moderation" - which includes annual deep-dive projects that utterly destroy any sense of balance, in order to "ship" something professionally or personally. More subtly, regular habbits need to be changed at different times in my life, including diet, exercise, sleep and so on.
>John Zelenski, a psychology professor at Carleton University
>Barbara Fredrickson, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California
Sounds like the real path is to win a good job at a large educational institution that allows you the time off to do all the things you need to be happy. I'd rather hear from those "experts" who manage to find happiness when not sitting under a tree on a sunny campus. Where is the expert who works 16-hour shifts on north sea oil rigs?
Self help fluff is the drop in replacement for economic instability by the psychotherapy world. Economics is too political and “like the weather” it’s just a natural phenomena that nobody can do anything about (sarcasm)
Modern self help is also selfish. There was a great bit on the Bojack Horseman show. A character disappears. Everyone is looking for them under the idea that they might have committed suicide. In the end, they went to decompress on their California ranch. They wanted to disconnect and so didn't tell anyone where they were going. Self help, with no regard for how your self help negatively impacts countless other people. When confronted, the character doesn't care. They take pride in choosing to "take responsibility" for their own happiness. Selfish jerk.
No ones saying report location constantly, but it is a dick move to not let people know that you'll be disconnecting and be unreachable for a while. Otherwise it can be very concerning if no one can get in touch or if there's an emergency.
cf. Shit Life Syndrome, "a phrase used by physicians in the United Kingdom and the United States for the effect that a variety of poverty or abuse-induced disorders can have on patients." [0]
> Sounds like the real path is to win a good job at a large educational institution that allows you the time off to do all the things you need to be happy
Most of the academics I know are ridiculously busy, trying to juggle teaching, research, publishing, grant applications, conferences, and so on.
> Where is the expert who works 16-hour shifts on north sea oil rigs?
Oil rig workers get a lot more time off than academics. Most work 2 weeks on / 2 weeks off, or 2 on / 3 off.
> Where is the expert who works 16-hour shifts on north sea oil rigs?
Probably working, and making fat $$$$ in the process. And if he's not working, probably chillin like a villain.
Instead, where are the people working 2 x fast-foot jobs to pay their bills. 16 hour oil rig gigs or long days fishing translates to lots of days off, but slangin burgers at Maccas without means you'll never advance.
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[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 135 ms ] threadAlso there's nothing more fake than a "happiness expert".
This is also very well trod ground, Plato did a good job on it.
Plato would have called your definition of happiness hedonism.
He would have called the articles definition of happiness eudaimonism, and that lines up pretty good with what you said can make you miserable. Plato and happiness scientists generally agree that eudaimonism is the best route to long term happiness.
Perhaps we should just stop using the word happiness and use the words pleasure and satisfaction instead.
When you ask a software developer that has worked for 3 years on a "successful" side project. He will probably tell you that it cost him lots of evenings he could have been seeing friends or sleeping. Yet that same person may feel very satisfied for having done so.
Still. It is difficult territory. Dissatisfaction is often leads to action that can then lead to "societal success". Should you be dissatisfied then? The Tony Robbinses of the world might say yes!
I think you're misconstruing this a bit. Plato and some happiness scientists see eudaimonia as superior to "affect" (the actual emotional state of "happy"). One is not a route to the other.
Daniel Kahneman is, as far as I can make out, a hedonist and so, fwiw, am I. To me eudaimonia is just smugness
> We don't really want what we think we desire.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U88jj6PSD7w
“Getting in the history books” aka fame is per definition never going to happen for most people. An important part of growing up is recognizing that you are neither rich nor famous and properly won’t be. General life advice needs to take that into account.
You state this like getting in history books is a universal desire, or a common goal for everyone.
Why is getting in history books a desired thing?
I had fun once. It was awful.
It was a royal slog that I dreaded in the beginning. But from the start it was a mood-improver, and subconsciously I caught on, because I've come to look forward to it and to enjoy it for itself. It gets me outside and in motion, with a reasonable amount of exertion. Doing it without hurting myself requires enough attention to pry me away from my other problems. It relaxes and somehow elevates rather than detaching me. The cleaning up satisfies my subclinical OCD in a deep way. Yard work has become a privilege that came with this property rather than a responsibility and chore.
So now the job is almost done and I'm looking longingly over the fence at my neighbors' wild yards. Maybe I'll make a deal with them, or maybe find some other way of generating happiness from being outdoors and working hard with natural randomness. Like gardening.
In other words, if you have control over aspects of the work, it's more likely to make you happy. This seems to be consistent with the findings in the article.
My courgettes and pumpkin got mildew on them and i couldn't help it but they still kept producing what they could and i had more than i used regardless. I could not keep my tomato plants from getting blown over, keep up with the cutting work, etc....but i still had an abundance of those.
As an aside to your last thought, there's a local teacher in my town that offers to paint home interiors in the summer time. He expects customers to do all the prep work and acquire the paint, but he will show up with brushes, rollers, etc. He does charge a fee, but it's much lower than any professional. When I asked why he does it, he simply answered that he loves painting and finds it relaxing, so he decided to do it on the side to help locals out. Maybe you could do something similar for yards in the neighborhood.
If the happiness experts had said happiness is overrated and to not bother, would time have written that?
How does one qualify as a happiness expert? Is there a post-intervention survey?
It was a French molecular biologist who became a Buddhist monk and spent 25 years meditating.
They tested his brain with an fMRI machine and found that he was 4 standard deviations above the average when it came to the place in his brain where they suspected happiness stemmed from.
IMO he’s qualified as a happiness expert. Not sure about these writers though.
The western scientific tradition is just starting in this journey (about 50 years of scientific studies exist on people that are considered high meditation achievers).
One of the main ideas of buddhism lacks a good translation, but it is in the fact that understanding something intellectually is NOT the same as understanding something experientially. That's apparent in the way this article is laid out. Just because you have been studying happiness doesn't mean you experience it. This difference in types of knowledge is key, and so foundational at the highest levels of buddhist tantra that working with the intellect is often seen as an impediment. That's why Buddhism is seen as a practice above a religion or philosophy.
But to your point, you are right, looking for transitory moments of happiness is not the same as working towards enlightenment.
> If anyone knows the secret to happiness, it’s surely the people who have dedicated their careers to studying it
Just because you study something doesn't mean you live the life. There was a fun little study that showed professional ethicists don't act particularly more ethical than the average person:
https://aeon.co/essays/how-often-do-ethics-professors-call-t...
It's frighteningly easy for someone who has no experience with wealth to squander a fortune very quickly. Look at big lottery winners who spend it all and end up in bankruptcy.
It's more than just inheriting money from your parents; they teach you how to keep it.
I think the truly happy people don't go around and tell others how to be happy. They just are happy.
On the other hand, people who are happy/content see a lot of pain and suffering in other people and might wish to impart some of their own wisdom into the world. At least that’s how I feel sometimes. But if someone is trying to make a profit from the information or advice then it’s probably not coming from a good place and less likely to be legitimately useful.
- Irish proverb: There is often a hole in the seat of the tailors pants.
The other 50% do not.
Time time time. What is it something something that buy time? Bingo!
Funny, I thought the same thing about the amount of sick people visiting doctors. The healthiest people I know don't ever see doctors.
* Every day * 5–6 times per week * 3–4 times per week * 1–2 times per week * Less than weekly
Most people I know who go to therapy go once or twice a month. Very few go weekly, and I don't know anyone who goes 3+ times a week.
Also the goal of therapy is to get to a place where you can quit it, so it makes sense that once people are more content with their lives they wouldn't go anymore.
The therapist provides a service with some practice that hopefully leads to some goal, but without excessive professional and emotional investment in the outcome of therapy. After the 50th minute of the session, however, you are on your own.
Would be interesting to see what constitutes a happiness expert and what type of work they do. I sincerely worry that people who sell happiness(for profit) are those who themselves are most unhappy.
Quite a few years ago, there was the "Seven habits of highly successful people" (or something similar) fad. The idea being if only you can copy these habits, you, too will be successful. Except it doesn't work that way. These habits are more a symptom of the sort of personality that is successful, rather than a cause of success.
My personal impression is that people have a "happiness set point" that is more or less a hardwired part of their personality. Chronically happy people will be so even if their life isn't so great, and chronically unhappy people will be so even with good success metrics. Trying to move your happiness set point by emulating habits of happy people may not work very well, no better than trying to tell a chronically depressed person "just cheer up" or a chronically overweight person "just eat less".
Sleep, exercise, and time spent in nature are the essentials for me: when I don’t have time for them, everything goes to shit. I’ve found that my mood also decreases pretty drastically when I don’t work on hobbies. I also need to at least talk to friends/family even if just on the phone or texting. Meditation is sort of in the middle, with only a slight affect on my happiness, so I dropped it. Prayer doesn’t do much for me, and I’ve never tried therapy. Spending time on social media, news, and/or Reddit completely destroys my mood.
That’s my personal hierarchy. The major points align with the “experts.” And IME, the activities do affect my mood, not necessarily the other way around.
Sorry, but this is panglossian nonsense.
Currently stuck in a field that I don't enjoy, but I'm another year away from completing my master's in the field I would rather be in. But, I gotta pay the bills
some nits:
1. everyone's happiness is different. Families are the extreme: I know lots of people in all 4 quadrants of kids/nokids, happy/unhappy. Western culture says that kids=happiness and no-kids=emptiness, but I'm here to tell you that's total and obvious BS. Hobbies are another silliness, again all 4 quadrants, INCLUDING miserable people addicted to their hobbies or using them to hide from unfulfilled lives. Sleep? all 4 quadrants, INCLUDING miserable people who sleep. Excitement? Education? etc etc etc - all 4 quadrants for everything.
2. people are fulfilled/happy/energetic/etc or less, at different times in their lives, and it's really true that sometimes you need to experience a period to find happiness in the next ("growth"). Eat, pray, love, kumbaya, and so on. One of my dearest and most happy/fulfilled friends recently lost his wife and he's miserable, barely holding on - but he recognizes this grieving period and leaning in on his Jewish heritage and year of mourning. Also, times of great learning can be miserable while you're going through them.
3. the survey was around weekly habits, but I've found that my happiness requires "everything in moderation, even moderation" - which includes annual deep-dive projects that utterly destroy any sense of balance, in order to "ship" something professionally or personally. More subtly, regular habbits need to be changed at different times in my life, including diet, exercise, sleep and so on.
hope this helps.
>Barbara Fredrickson, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California
Sounds like the real path is to win a good job at a large educational institution that allows you the time off to do all the things you need to be happy. I'd rather hear from those "experts" who manage to find happiness when not sitting under a tree on a sunny campus. Where is the expert who works 16-hour shifts on north sea oil rigs?
Sinister sounding. The greater good has been the excuse for some of the worst atrocities in history.
My first reading is actually the later. It sounds to me like a science center that was amalgamated or expended into a "greater" version.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_life_syndrome
Most of the academics I know are ridiculously busy, trying to juggle teaching, research, publishing, grant applications, conferences, and so on.
> Where is the expert who works 16-hour shifts on north sea oil rigs?
Oil rig workers get a lot more time off than academics. Most work 2 weeks on / 2 weeks off, or 2 on / 3 off.
Probably working, and making fat $$$$ in the process. And if he's not working, probably chillin like a villain.
Instead, where are the people working 2 x fast-foot jobs to pay their bills. 16 hour oil rig gigs or long days fishing translates to lots of days off, but slangin burgers at Maccas without means you'll never advance.
So called experts.
This are the kind of things that make me close a web page.