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Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

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Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#25

The intentions there are good, but reads bit unrealistic in some places. Being a boomer, author doesn't realise how far financially he is then many people who are younger. > Stop wasting your time on commuting, boring jobs, meetings, TV. Do only things that you feel are worthwhile, with people you like. If this means a cut in income, so be it. TV - sure, commuting - thanks to COVID only, the rest - sorry, but I would…

Just like in e.g. programming 'design principles' are called principles, not 'hard design rules all of which you must strive to follow to the letter' I'm pretty sure the author's intention is for these 10 things to be interpreted like the former, not the latter (also see sibling comments).

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#27
I don't like his proposed end goal. His happiness sounds like a mere absense of pain, but other methods will get you there more reliably. I like the first items on his list: go into the world and mess around, but then he begins to prescribe mental cleanliness: finish your plate, associate only with good people, don't cling to material possessions. It's like he's picking arbitrary chapters from Hesse's Siddhartha. I feel in an uncanny valley of dogma.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#28
post #14

Every time I hear or read about happiness, I remember this quote from Thomas Metzinger. I hope you’ll find it useful, too: “Evolution as such is not a process to be glorified: It is blind, driven by chance and not by insight. It is merciless and sacrifices individuals. It invented the reward system in the brain; it invented positive and negative feelings to motivate our behavior; it placed us on a hedonic treadmill t…

Well, if you want a really reductionist view of happiness, which also happens to be largely true, you could say: have children.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#29
There are some pieces of good advice in there, but it is ultimately a selfish list.

"Mingle with others" because it makes _you_ happy implies _using_ other people; a better way is to _serve_ others ("Love thy neighbor like yourself"), which leads to a deeper happiness based on purpose.

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