Most lives are lived by default

I directly disagree with this post and take a naturalist approach. People aren't unhappy because they want more; they are unhappy because their basic needs aren't met. And by needs I don't mean material needs, but basic self realization needs.

We actually need very little to be happy, but people now live their lives in way they were not designed to be. As a primordial tribesmen, all people needed were the love and camaraderie of their fellow tribesmen (ie work with close friends), enjoy the thrill of going out on a hunt and being recognized for success (self driven accomplishment and social status), find a mate and raise a family without being a wage slave (adequate free time, no boss), and other aspects of life where you are free to choose.

Today's corporate world has none of these simple aspects. You don't get to choose your colleagues and often don't have anything in common with them. Your work is often assigned to you, and both recognition and reward is shifted towards the company or boss. You have a boss. You make money but all your time is taken away.

You might argue we are materially better off, but biologically our brains our programmed to be happy in the old tribal way.

Some of Paul Graham's essays talk about the same issues.

I've always been unhappiest when I sit down and try to decide if I am happy. I find I am happiest when I am thinking about my situation or life in general the least.

When reading the post about the example giving of the guy who seems happy I thought to myself, "this guy sounds a lot like me, why wouldn't he be happy?" I was disappointed to discover that the only reason he wasn't happy was because he is basically choosing to be unhappy in what seems like a good situation.

While I'm no expert on the matter that sounds like an awfully rose-coloured view of the life of a typical "primordial tribesman".

I am not trying to troll you; I mean this question honestly: Why do you care so much about being happy? I know that is the default goal of most people, but it seems rather like chasing gold at the end of the rainbow when you have no reason to think that the gold exists. Do you know of anyone anywhere ever who has spent the majority of their time 100% or even 80% happy? Was this person a holder of a medical marijuana card?

I think we would look down on someone who spent their life stoned. I do not see why this method of achieving the "happy" feeling as any less admirable than any other method. In the end, you are just striving to be chemically stoned, though one method uses outside chemicals to achieve this feeling and the other uses activities and experiences of a non-chemical nature. In the end you are just striving to put and to keep your brain in some chemical state. Does not seem like much to me.

Christopher Hitchens -- who has been on my mind much as the first anniversary of his death is in nine days -- once said that if offered a stress-free and blissful life, he would not want it, that he likes the feeling of burning the candle at both ends and the stress of things. Do not make the mistake of saying that he has redefined happiness for himself to mean the state of stress, because that is not what we are talking about when people talk about wanting to "be happy". They mean they want to feel good and joyous. Hitchens did not say that being stressed and attenuated through effort gave him joy, he only said that he preferred this state to anything else. I sympathize with him on this point and take it from me, this is not the same as the "happiness" that most people are talking about. It is more like a state of satisfaction with occasional blimps of good humor mixed in with a great deal of unpleasant emotions. But, stiff upper lip and all that.

I think anyone who imagines that if they start a startup and strike it rich that, like a Sim, all their need meters will max out at green and they will feel permanently joyous is completely kidding themselves. This just is not how life goes. Life does not plateau at joy. It is a constant moving wave.

This is the main philosophy of the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita which says :

"Your right is only to work, and never to its fruits. Don't be motivated by the fruits of work. Nor should you be attached to inaction."