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The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?

theguardian.com

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Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?

#131

Post by pa7ch »

simonh wrote: post #112
nkozyra wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ;)

Some of what he says is a bit disturbing, but he has a lot of statistics and cites a lot of sources that seem very credible, and I've yet to come across any counter-arguments that are anything more than incredulity and ideology. I'd love to see a plausible and knowledgeable counter argument.

Not everything he says is off base and he does present the basics of clinical psychology well. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is an interesting field one can gain a lot from studying. However many things he talks or just hints at can be questional and neither his expertise nor fairly presented.

It helps his cause that many criticisms of him are terrible and involve many fabrications.

This youtube channel contra points is a much better criticism then mine: https://youtu.be/4LqZdkkBDas

Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?

#132

Post by metabagel »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #47
vorpalhex wrote: post #3

There 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…

It's not a choice.

I think that I would say that we can't choose to be happy, but we can choose to be content, and we can choose not to dwell in sadness. We can allow our emotions to fluctuate and not stay fixed in depression. We do this by not fixing our thoughts, and by being open to the present moment.

Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?

#133

Post by Liquix »

chongli wrote: post #119
Liquix wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'?

I'm extremely skeptical of the brain chemistry narrative. It doesn't explain why depression is growing rapidly in the Western world. It doesn't explain why antidepressants vary so widely in their efficacy between persons. I'm far more apt to believe that people's lives are getting worse and that they're depressed as a result. People are lonelier than ever and society's problems are bigger and more abstract than ever.…

I completely agree. As Chamath Palihapitiya (ex-Facebook) eloquently puts it, our technology culture is 'ripping apart the social fabric of how society works' [0]. We're social creatures who thrive on human interaction and sharing genuine moments - social media gives us the exact opposite [1].

The really insidious thing is that many of the big players and driving forces behind these trends saw it coming, knew that what they were building may have far-reaching negative consequences, and then chose to do it anyway for the sake of money. What a time to be alive, right?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78oMjNCAayQ

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4853817/

Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?

#134

Post by beat »

chongli wrote: post #119
Liquix wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'?

I'm extremely skeptical of the brain chemistry narrative. It doesn't explain why depression is growing rapidly in the Western world. It doesn't explain why antidepressants vary so widely in their efficacy between persons. I'm far more apt to believe that people's lives are getting worse and that they're depressed as a result. People are lonelier than ever and society's problems are bigger and more abstract than ever.…

That's like saying there wasn't cancer before cancer was first diagnosed. I don't think clinical depression is becoming more commonplace. I think it's becoming more recognized. I'm old enough to predate modern drug treatments for depression, but as a child, I saw plenty of untreated depression around. I recognize it for what it was now.

Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?

#135

Post by GoodJokes »

afpx wrote: post #99

As 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 m…

[dead]

Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?

#136

Post by horsawlarway »

sethammons wrote: post #118

Two points jumped out at me: 1) > Contrary to what most of us might predict, those earning over $100K are no happier than those with incomes of less than $25K And 2) > ... happiness and sense of purpose are both at their highest among people working between 21 and 30 hours a week, and misery increases in tandem with the number of hours worked thereafter. The results are consistent across genders. I can't say I agree…

I think the two are more coupled than you're making them out to be.

In my experience, jobs that pay upwards of 100k require significant time/energy investments. I make good money, but I have to be mentally engaged all day long. I also have to deal with situations that come up nights/weekends/holidays. My average work week is about 50 hours of time I'd call "billable" plus another 20 hours of time spent on keeping current with my field.

I would GLADLY trade half of my salary to work half the hours, but that's not very easy to do: companies want employees on standard hours, and I still have to keep up with what's changing in my field to be relevant and continue pulling in the salary I have.

So I think there's a sweet spot where a job is good enough to avoid the financial stressors like missing payments or not being able to replace necessities, but not so demanding that the stress of the job itself approaches the same level.

On the extremes: Stress from finances (low income), stress from very taxing job (high income). I agree with you that I'd prefer the job stress, but not by all that much. They both make me anxious, worried, drained.

Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?

#137

Post by dangerkitteh »

watwut wrote: post #86
thedaemon wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Where are you getting this data? I've known many monks (and nuns too for that matter) and you are encouraged to discuss when you are unhappy. No abbot wants a miserable monk, so they work with you to be sure you are happy and adjusting well to the life. If not, then you mutually come to a decision about what to do next, even if that means leaving the monastery. Implying that they are some sort of prisoner is inaccurate.

Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?

#138

Post by metabagel »

TheBeardKing wrote: post #49

I think your ability to be content is just a personality trait, and some have that ability to a much greater extent than others. For example, the saying "ignorance is bliss" seems to have some merit - many highly intelligent people just cannot be happy. It's an unfortunate product of your brain chemistry, and it's nothing you can choose to escape given average circumstances, as much as we romanticize the idea of "fin…

We are all able to be content. Meditation is the most straightforward way to learn how. It teaches you to live in the present moment, which teaches you that the present moment is enough - you can just be. Another approach is to learn to recognize when you are making thinking errors:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-mentally-strong...

Thinking errors get in the way of contentment.

Re: The money, job, marriage myth: are you happy yet?

#140

Post by horsawlarway »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #111
assblaster wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your mortgage is $600k, you should work towards paying that off more quickly, depending on the interest rate, so that you can be free from that burden. Once your house is paid for, then your daily work can decrease if you want, or have extra savings available for earlier retirement or maybe doing more fun things. I won't be "happy" until I'm debt free with $10mil in savings/investments, but I am definitely happy r…

paying off a debt under 4% faster at the expense of putting that money into a portfolio that is expected to earn 6%+ is making your overall assets less diversified. You're trading down on both variance and return expectation.

Sure, but that assumes the goal is just to accumulate money.

That's a fine goal if that's what you want, and if done well it can lead to financial freedom, but it's also entirely reasonable to remove fixed expenses in order to make it possible to change from a high paying and stressful job to a lower paying but more fulfilling job.

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