The pursuit of happiness is the most unhappy pursuit of all
The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
81–90 of 195 posts
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#82It's not clear that happiness ought to be the goal. I mean, sure, we were bred by schools and culture to aim for happiness as if it was the goal, but being stressed and discontent isn't necessarily bad. I believe that finding meaning in what you do ought to be the goal. Meaning is what fulfills, not happiness.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#83There is nothing which will make you happy. You must choose to be happy. There is no job, no amount of money, no relationship, which will make you feel whole and happy and content and done. The opposite doesn't hold - there are jobs and relationships and financial strains which will certainly keep you from being happy. The goal isn't for a job or a relationship to make you happy. It's to enable other things which are…
This reminds me of a quote from Stewart Brand during an interview with Tim Ferris.
".... and being proud is the most reliable source of happiness that I know."[https://tim.blog/2018/02/03/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts...]
Teach yourself how to cook, get in shape, draw a picture, write a story, help someone less fortunate, teach someone something you know, learn how to juggle... In the end it doesn't really matter what it is but you will have that proud feeling and be happy in that moment. Rinse and repeat.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#84Our combined income is about $600k USD, but funny enough we don't consider ourselves "rich". We consider ourselves "upper middle class" at least for the Bay Area, because we both work very hard, probably 10+ hours a day. Our mortgage on our house is less than 1 year's income so it's relatively low compared to others in the Bay Area. If one of us lost our jobs, we could still comfortably afford our mortgage but we would have to cut back on a lot of things.
Our children go to a private school that is close by, and our commutes are less than 20 mins away each. My wife makes 2x more than me and she works hard but loves her job. I'm a lot more relaxed with my job even though I'm older, but I get to spend a lot more time with the kids (ex. pickup from school every day, make dinner for them, etc).
We have enough money such that we don't have to think about it, which is a luxury. We have never fought over money, but we have fought over other more mundane things like over how we raise our children. But overall, not having to worry takes a lot of conflict off the table that many other people ave to endure, so we consider ourselves very lucky.
So yes, I'm pretty happy these days. It hasn't always been this way but once we both started making > $400k combined, things got easier and easier. A lot of our happiness these days is predicated by how our children behave, are they fighting, do they have issues at school, etc.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#85happiness is not the goal. meaning is.
What's the point if you're not happy? Fulfilling your meaning and being utterly miserable seems like a goal I want to avoid. Unless meaning will lead to happiness, at which point happiness is again the goal.
Life is suffering. Life is not happiness. Best you figure that out now.
We have birthday parties and celebrations all the time. Why? Because life is miserable and we should take every opportunity to celebrate when we can.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you know those monks are "happier"? How can you measure something like that? I can't even measure my own "happiness" most of the time, and it's a different part of my brain giving that report (usually full of crap and not realistic) from the part that actually experiences "happiness".
Contentment = happiness in this context?
How do you know they are content? They are literally not allowed to talk about own unhappiness when it happens to them. Monk rules are pretty strict, they have to deal with own crises without raising voice and are often not allowed to talk to outside world in privacy or in public.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the point if you're not happy? Fulfilling your meaning and being utterly miserable seems like a goal I want to avoid. Unless meaning will lead to happiness, at which point happiness is again the goal.
Life is suffering. Life is not happiness. Best you figure that out now. We have birthday parties and celebrations all the time. Why? Because life is miserable and we should take every opportunity to celebrate when we can.
> Life is suffering. Life is not happiness. Best you figure that out now.
Well, that's wonderfully patronizing.
>We have birthday parties and celebrations all the time. Why? Because life is miserable and we should take every opportunity to celebrate when we can.
So finding reasons and opportunities to be happy is the goal?
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#88Money gave me stability. Stability allowed me to have time for introspection. Introspection allowed me to target issues in my life. Fixing those issues is lowering my discomfort in life. Money won't fix anything for you but it will provide you an environment where you can.
Your life is literally made up of the things you pay attention to. If those are happy things, you will probably be more happy than not, and vice-versa. Money gives you a choice about what to pay attention to. If you are in a survival or starvation situation, you will be forced to pay attention to surviving / eating. Not having a choice about what you can pay attention to means your life is defined by outside forces.…
> If you are in a survival or starvation situation, you will be forced to pay attention to surviving / eating. Not having a choice about what you can pay attention to means your life is defined by outside forces.
Well said. This describes my experiences really well.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#89Americans are becoming too rational and this is a major problem. When you over-value rationality, you expect to be able to have a rational answer to every question. The hand-licking story that made the front page today illustrates this point perfectly. Approached rationally, the mom could not solve the problem, no amount of mental effort would yield a resolution or insight into the issue. When the mind expects an ans…
> that there aren't any atheist churches.
That isn't a rational response, that's an irrational response to an emotional need they apparently do acknowledge. My grandfather and uncles literally built their churches with their bare hands and wallets. If you're an athiest and want a church, well, the rational response would be go out and build one.
Or at least join the Unitarians. Most of them don't care.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#90“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yours…
most popular quote on HN today.