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Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

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Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

#341

Post by siren2026 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #138
annzabelle wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got labeled "smart but lazy" at a pretty young age (high test scores, didn't do any homework), and I let that label stick with me for far too long. I took some pride in how I could get the top score in a class without studying, and didn't realize that studying itself was a useful skill. I let this whole mindset drag me down through undergrad (especially once I hit the point where I really ought to have studied), an…

> I got labeled "smart but lazy" at a pretty young age (high test scores, didn't do any homework) Same experience here. I could find just about anything else I wanted to do except homework. Spent all night coding many times. Went to school and aced all the tests, skipped all the homework, did not get good grades as a result. My dad actually arranged a visit with a psychiatrist who did an official IQ test (wooo! I'm a…

>> My dad actually arranged a visit with a psychiatrist who did an official IQ test (wooo! I'm a genius! yay!)

One must love the irony that those tests are mainly use as a way to pat yourself on the back (you and your dad) more than any possible actionable item out of it.

Funny how most people that take an IQ test come out as "geniuses"

Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

#342

Post by ydat »

xyzelement wrote: post #297
thin_carapace wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not that wage is any indicator of inherent goodness but yea electrical engineers get paid average wage in my country while miners earn many multiples of said wage, who's the dumb one now ???

Presumably miners get a high wage to offset the negatives of the job and attract people. So to an extent you have a choice which way to go and you try to make a smart one. Personally I wouldn't have a highly hazardous job if it paid any multiple of what I make now and that feels smart to my situation. But for someone else that might be a different calculus.

> Presumably miners get a high wage to offset the negatives of the job and attract people.

A common thread I see when these types of topics come up too is that the high pay in many of these jobs (trades, policing, nursing, etc.) is dependent on working large amounts of overtime.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

#343

Post by oarla »

As the old adage goes

Ignorance is bliss.

Drawing from my own life experiences, the more I learn the more things I worry about that could go wrong. This worry creeps into all aspects of life and becomes the norm. This creates a sense of dissatisfaction which can be a form of unhappiness.

Smart folks get aware of environment/challenges etc much sooner than others and maybe that creates the pathway to erosion of happiness.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

#344

Post by oarla »

ohmahjong wrote: post #215
rootusrootus wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I got labeled "smart but lazy" at a pretty young age (high test scores, didn't do any homework) Same experience here. I could find just about anything else I wanted to do except homework. Spent all night coding many times. Went to school and aced all the tests, skipped all the homework, did not get good grades as a result. My dad actually arranged a visit with a psychiatrist who did an official IQ test (wooo! I'm a…

What does real happiness look like to you?

Having no concerns and being healthy.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

#345

Post by leoedin »

Lerc wrote: post #213
nico wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes accountability is not enough. Medication and therapy might help, as it can be the case with ADHD. Many people with it fit the pattern of “smart but lazy”

I have come to wonder if lazy actually exists as a thing in it's own right. I too had the 'smart but lazy' label, was diagnosed with ADHD past the age of 50. One of the things I noticed was when people talk about "Sometimes you just have to knuckle down and do the thing you don't want to do". That was an ability that just came and went with me, the same task one day would be "Right I had better do that thing now" and…

I'm in a similar boat. I don't think "knuckle down and learn something" has ever worked for me. It's more like "set things up so the learning aligns with my interests" and then... woosh! I'm off and deep into the topic. That was something I had to teach myself (nobody at school said anything other than "pay attention"). And quite often I still miss and steam off in the wrong direction.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

#346

Post by saghm »

MajorTakeaway wrote: post #196
saghm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly agreed, and it's also worth it for those who think too narrowly along those lines that those aren't even the same axis. I used to be single and childless, and my happiness fluctuated a lot, but now I'm married and much more consistently happier. Neither my wife or I want kids, so if we had them, suddenly we'd be back to being less happy again. There are also plenty of single parents, and I'm sure many of the…

Important to define what is happy and what were problems to begin with. I'm 39, no kids, and my parents weren't happy with me, but were happy otherwise. How does this factor how I'm unhappy? Happiness should be the end goal. Contentment is part of it. Compromise. Quality over quantity and the quality doesn't have to always be great, just no regrets according to modern death bed speeches. Being happy can mean chasing…

I said "more likely", not "guaranteed". I feel like the whole point I'm trying to make by building onto the parent comment is that there's not a one-size-fits-all template to being happy and fulfilled, and that not everyone will fit expected trends. At no point did I try to prescribe anything to someone as the way to avoid being unhappy, nor did I attempt to categorize the world into buckets of who would be happy or unhappy. That's literally the opposite of what I was trying to say, which is that trying to force expectations of what one person thinks would make someone happy onto someone else is not a good thing.

Your second paragraph seems to be mostly quibbling of my use of the term that already was being used throughout this thread (and in the article itself). I don't understand why you chose my comment in particular to litigate the definition when it's not something I've introduced to the discussion.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

#347

Post by pmarreck »

annzabelle wrote: post #107
dnlosx wrote: post #63

I will speak from my experience. When I was younger, I considered myself very smart, and I was pretty unhappy. As I grew, I met people much smarter than me; I stopped seeing myself as "the smart" one, and now I am pretty happy. It's not that I became happier because I became less smart; I became happier when I stopped thinking my value was based on my intelligence, so I stopped trying to be recognized by my intellect…

I got labeled "smart but lazy" at a pretty young age (high test scores, didn't do any homework), and I let that label stick with me for far too long. I took some pride in how I could get the top score in a class without studying, and didn't realize that studying itself was a useful skill. I let this whole mindset drag me down through undergrad (especially once I hit the point where I really ought to have studied), an…

Same exact issue.

And as other responses to you mentioned, the transition to college was thus absolutely brutal. I ended up having to take multiple leaves of absence from Cornell (the longest- 5 years, during which I enlisted for 4 years in the USAF in California- this actually helped me a lot), and despite entering in 1990 I only graduated in 2000. One of the shorter leaves left me so depressed that I think I was close to suicidal (the only way I can describe it is like wearing poop-shaded glasses that you cannot take off... I also noticed that I cared as little about other lives as I cared about my own, which is something I still think about whenever I hear about family annihilation/suicides, etc), but something kept me going and I pulled out of it.

On the bright side, I saw the potential of the Internet not only before my peers but before basically everyone (I was always a huge computer nerd), so that has aided my career.

For the action-RPG gamers out there, ADD is a hell of a rough minmax perk lol

Oh and I have a toddler son now- don't get me started on how much more difficult parenting seems to be

Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

#348

Post by ch4s3 »

oarla wrote: post #343

As the old adage goes Ignorance is bliss. Drawing from my own life experiences, the more I learn the more things I worry about that could go wrong. This worry creeps into all aspects of life and becomes the norm. This creates a sense of dissatisfaction which can be a form of unhappiness. Smart folks get aware of environment/challenges etc much sooner than others and maybe that creates the pathway to erosion of happin…

You can easily flip this perspective on its head and postulate that being smarter helps you come up with more complex and logical rationalizations for your unhappiness in a way that totally orthogonal to its source. You could view excessive worry about things outside of your control as a pathological case of a certain kind of intelligence.

A lot of very intelligent philosophers written about how to lead a good/happy life over the centuries and none of them to my knowledge encourage a focus on problems outside of your control.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

#349

Post by ishjoh »

GMoromisato wrote: post #208
bittercynic wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a single and childless person, I don't like the implication that those are marks of a less fulfilling life. I know some people married with kids who seem very happy and fulfilled, and some profoundly miserable and trapped. I may be missing out on some good things, but I'm also avoiding some extreme misery, and generally do feel content and fulfilled.

The thing about having children is that you absolutely cannot know what it's like until you actually have them. And then, of course, it's too late. I'm convinced that I would have been happy without children. I would have lived a wonderful life, maybe with a spouse, maybe alone, traveling the world, working on my interests, and generally doing whatever I wanted to do. You don't miss what you never had. But now that I…

10/10, no notes.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)

#350

Post by ipsod »

torginus wrote: post #326
gsinclair wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative design for an education system is quite a challenge. You say it allows smart but lazy people to succeed. In truth, it allows many kinds of people to succeed. And “the hardworking but less gifted kids struggle” doesn’t ring particularly true, unless you mean something quite strong by “less gifted”.

This is a very difficult discussion, especially considering there are many countries and many schooling systems, but you have to admit there are common failings across systems. > the hardworking but less gifted kids struggle Sorry, I think I miscommunicated what I wanted to say, which is I know for a fact that there were people in my HS class that put in a lot more effort than I did, yet got worse grades, even in sub…

> It's essentially a 'Kid Job' where you have to blindly submit to authority, follow instructions, not seek meaning in what you do, and not act out.

According to John Taylor Gatto's research, the US school system was explicitly designed from inception to be just that. I haven't looked into it beyond his words, but he seems to have actual quotes and notes from the people at the origin.

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