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Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

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Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#131
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this a lot. I’ve struggled with… let’s call it unhappiness a lot in my life. I spent years trying to work through deep emotional things intellectually, but the things that really got me on the right track were: 1. Sleeping 8 hours a day 2. Eating less processed foods & more fruits and vegetables 3. Walking Simple things, and they all took time to turn into habits, but better health/more energy eventually made…

Maybe learning what kills happiness (reference to that post on how to kill pilots) leads to happiness?

I’m going to borrow that way of thinking about it. Removing obstacles, letting go, etc.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this list seems obvious but its incredible how few people do it. Intermittent fasting is the only way I have been able to control my weight as an adult. Exercising makes you feel better and live longer. Alcohol is a poison that offers short term fun for long term sadness and pain. Sleep makes an immediately and daily impact on your life. Meditation (I don't do it anymore) is like cleaning for your brain and sh…

>Alcohol is a poison that offers short term fun for long term sadness and pain. Alcohol in excess ? Certainly, but I don't buy the idea that alcohol in moderation is harmful. There have, of course, been studies that draw negative conclusions about alcohol, but they either commingle societal effects or discount the cardiovascular benefits. TLDR: Alcohol in moderation is fine. Just don't drink to excess. Nearly all the…

I mean, this is purely anecdotal, but if I drink two or three glasses of wine in a night, I get noticeably worse sleep quality than if I drink nothing.

There are long-term effects associated with heavy drinking, but there are also short-term negative effects (for some people) associated with pretty much any alcohol consumption at all. Headaches, acid reflux, etc.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#133
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financially sure we face more pressure. But let’s be honest that modern society is practically a utopia compared to being drafted into WW2 and facing carnage and death.

Cherry picking makes no argument any favours. :P I agree on WW2, sure, but after WW2? I've spoken with 30+ elders and they all unanimously agree that life in general was much, much better than today. Mostly in terms of upwards social mobility. An insane amount of very regular bank tellers could afford house, two apartments and 2-3 cars. And to put 3 kids in an university. Nowadays that's a very questionable endeavour…

I'd strongly suggest looking for supporting data. If you talk to people, you will inevitably hear that "the good old times" were better than what we have.

In the 1950s, the average house was still ~3 years of average income. Cars were about 9 months of income. So the "regular bank teller" with a house, 2 apartments, and 3 cars... there's something missing in the story.

Let's not even get into the fact that life was significantly worse if you happened to be not white or male. Black people didn't have their voting rights significantly curtailed via Jim Crow laws. Married women didn't have the ability to have their own money. Beating your spouse was A-OK.

Yes, social mobility was better (for white men). Universities were cheaper (a year of tuition was still ~1-2 months of income).

Medical care was... not so good. Nutrition a non-existent concept. (And before we go to the "all natural food", quick reminder that the 1950s were the decade of TV dinners and truly atrocious recipes)

The 50's certainly had less of the constant stream of demands that our current time has. It's not like it was purely worse, or the "golden age" image wouldn't hold. But as a net, across the population, we've seen improvement. We are backsliding the last ~20 years, absolutely. But we're still not in 1950.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#134
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this a lot. I’ve struggled with… let’s call it unhappiness a lot in my life. I spent years trying to work through deep emotional things intellectually, but the things that really got me on the right track were: 1. Sleeping 8 hours a day 2. Eating less processed foods & more fruits and vegetables 3. Walking Simple things, and they all took time to turn into habits, but better health/more energy eventually made…

Maybe learning what kills happiness (reference to that post on how to kill pilots) leads to happiness?

7 ways to maximize misery (one of the more useful CGP Grey videos) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#135

This advice is all well and good, but what happens to your state of internal bliss when one of you a-hole neighbors deliberately brings their dog to do its business on your front lawn. No amount to karmic happiness will stop you from wanting just retribution.

Pieter was a friend of mine, and he certainly wasn’t conflict averse. If something bothered him, he would do something about it.

He used to bring a Nerf gun to conferences just to shoot down people’s drones because he found them annoying.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this list seems obvious but its incredible how few people do it. Intermittent fasting is the only way I have been able to control my weight as an adult. Exercising makes you feel better and live longer. Alcohol is a poison that offers short term fun for long term sadness and pain. Sleep makes an immediately and daily impact on your life. Meditation (I don't do it anymore) is like cleaning for your brain and sh…

>Alcohol is a poison that offers short term fun for long term sadness and pain. Alcohol in excess ? Certainly, but I don't buy the idea that alcohol in moderation is harmful. There have, of course, been studies that draw negative conclusions about alcohol, but they either commingle societal effects or discount the cardiovascular benefits. TLDR: Alcohol in moderation is fine. Just don't drink to excess. Nearly all the…

The J-shaped curves that you mention might be due to flaws in study design. In particular, the category of alcohol-abstainers includes people who are abstaining for health-related reasons (for example, former heavy drinkers!), so you would expect this to inflate the rate of negative impacts for abstainers. When these biases are controlled for, the benefits of alcohol consumption -- in any quantity -- largely disappear, especially when it comes to all-cause mortality, where the relationship may be closer to linear than J-shaped.

For example, see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803651/ or https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31571-X (has some useful references)

If you have seen other studies which refute these ideas, I'm interested (as an alcohol consumer :)).

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#137

I personally subscribe to the advice given in The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck: You only get to choose your struggles in life. Happiness is the transient feeling in having dealt with a problem. You'll never run out of problems to deal with, therefore, the one thing to care about is what problems you end up engaging with (i.e. "give a f*ck about"). To that end, the ten items presented in the article are decent poin…

I have a question. How did you make it through more than 5 pages of that book? It reads like an 8th grader that is trying his hardest to let you know he's cool and smart enlightened as fuck bro and has to curse every other line.

I was cringing so hard in the first pages there is no way I could read it. It reads as a sort of pop culture, edgy (and trendy) mindfulness / Buddhism comboniation in a self help package.

The slew of self help books with sht and fck in the titles after this books success is amusing though.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually a myth that agrarian lifestyle was all that difficult. We have the enduring image of the farmer up at dawn, but the reality was that people completed the day's work in a few hours and didn't do much for the rest of the day. Capitalism has changed that a bit now though. That 30-40 year lifespan is also a myth. High mortality brings down the average, but people's lifespan has been around 70 throughout his…

As a person who grew up in farmer's family (and who's parents are still farmers) I can attest that that kind of life is way tougher than being office worker in a city .

How so?

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#139

I don't disagree with the article in principle, but to me it seems that us the modern people are pressured much harder than previous generations. At 41 y/o I have arrived at most of the same wisdom but I can't see how and where can I implement it. As others commenters said, I wish I could take a pay cut and work on things I love more than my current job. I absolutely can't afford it; not because I can't take the inco…

>but I can't afford not saving, especially having in mind where does the world seem to go (potential economical crisis on the horizon)

That was always the case in history and I would argue we are living in one of the best periods ever when it comes to that.

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