Relative happiness places emphasis on external factors and tend to wear off after the initial attainment of these factors. True happiness comes from within and from the insight that regardless of whatever situation or problems you face, you have the means of overcoming them and you’re able to be happy just as you are.
The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
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Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#92There 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…
Happiness is not a choice. If you think it is, try learning more about clinical depression.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#93Americans 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…
Perhaps the starkest example of this phenomenon is when atheists lament that there aren't any atheist churches. 50 years ago, if you were an atheist, you still went to church. They were still the pillars that communities revolved around, the very loom of the fabric of society. Nowadays, we've thrown away every last bit of symbolism that brings people together and wonder why we're so lonely. If things aren't perfectly…
> Second, atheists went to Church? Well was that because if they didn't, they were ostracized -- and, well, lonely?
American distrust for religion began in the sixties and seventies. Before, it was a normal and accepted part of life. People wanted to go to church. Even if you didn't believe in it you still wanted to go. It's hard to believe but that's how all of the world's societies were up until very recently. Religion aided life, not hindered it.
The Enlightenment was a comparatively small movement that really only took root in the intelligentsia. You would have had to pry religion out of the cold dead fingers of the common folks.
Now, even religious folks often stay home on Sunday.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#94There 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…
Happiness is not a choice. If you think it is, try learning more about clinical depression.
Not OP, but I took the comment in the context of your average healthy person. An illness absolutely affects the equation. I don't think anyone is suggesting depression is a choice.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#95>> happiness goes up with increases in income at the lower end of the scale, but then it falls with higher incomes
Income and wealth are two completely unrelated concepts. Income doesn't mean much because you usually need to work harder to get more income; so the benefits are offset by the suffering of having to work harder.
Wealth, on the other hand doesn't require any suffering - It's just pure happiness. Wealth can buy you anything. The only downside is that it erodes your mental fortitude/willpower but if you have enough wealth, you don't need any willpower anyway because wealth makes all personality traits redundant - Everyone likes a rich person no matter what; to a rich person, personality is useless.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#96All I need is a skateboard, a magic the gathering draft, a chart of the S&P 500, a game of Halo, and a good pizza and I'm pretty happy
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#97There 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…
Happiness is not a choice. If you think it is, try learning more about clinical depression.
Some people's brain chemistry makes feeling happiness much more difficult. Some people with clinical depression will physically never experience happiness the same way others do. That's true and valid.
But does that really mean that being happy is not a choice?
A paraplegic is unable to choose to move their legs due to a medical condition - would they assert that 'moving your legs is not a choice'?
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Happiness is an emotion, it comes and goes. Even the premise of "are you happy?" is missing the point. Are we talking about feeling happiness twice as much as feeling sadness? 4x, 10x? Sadness can come from things outside our control. I think a better goal is are you present? Are you listening to yourself and to what you really want for your life? Everyone will want different things but making an emotion the goal is…
I don't believe happiness is an emotion. Joy is an emotion, it comes and goes. But happiness is more than this, it can be a perpetual state of consciousness and comes in parallel to emotions.
I like to see that as fulfilment, or contentment.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#99As an outlier poor kid who made money, I can really relate to this. This is a thought-provoking piece, and hits on a lot of things I think about often.
But, I think some of us aren’t necessarily in the hedonic treadmill game. Some of us keep working to gain more wealth not be of higher social status but because we fear being relegated back to poor-guy status.
Now, I often do want to be the non-rich guy again. I see many of my friends making 30k a year and enjoying life. And, I often take time off to hang with my old friends because it gets me out of my bubble and also because it’s more authentic to me. I get tired of wearing a mask.
But, I keep driving myself for wealth because I find it gives me security. As a poor kid, I can’t tell you how many times I was targeted by the power hierarchy. Being at the bottom of the social ladder hurts. You get abused and bullied. You have no voice or remedy when you (often) become the target of those with wealth. It hurts mentally, emotionally, financially, and - as the police are mostly paid to watch you - it can wind you in prison.
No, I can’t deal with that feeling. I want money because it gives me access and it keeps the creepers away.
Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a choice.
Then what is it? Jordan Peterson, who for a long time I wrote off as a crackpot until I actually paid attention to some of his interviews and lectures, talks a lot about this. Happiness is a pretty crappy goal to have. It's a side effect of pursuing actual, worthwhile goals. People need to take some responsibility for their own state of mind and the things they are choosing to do that affect it.
> Then what is it?
It's a response. Internal responses, sure, but also - and more dramatically - to external ones.
> Jordan Peterson, who for a long time I wrote off as a crackpot
Trust your initial instincts ;)