A 70-year-old's secret to a full and happy life • Hacker News Board

Cougher wrote: post #8

This reminds me of the Monty Python skit, "How To Do It". To rid the world of all known diseases, "become a doctor and discover a marvelous cure for something, and then, when the medical world really starts to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be diseases any more." The secret to a happy life is to be happy now instead of waiting for…

Here is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_ryjjeNc5k

Re: A 70-year-old's secret to a full and happy life

#15

Post by abhinuvpitale » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

colecut wrote: post #7

callesgg wrote: post #6

The secret is lie about how happy your life is. To others to yourself. To everyone.

Funny how true this is really. Can't intentionally smiling release the same chemicals in your brain that are released when you are happy about something in a sort of backwards effect?

Fake it till you make it? I definitely think this helps in case of happiness, since a 'deliberate' smile makes folks around you friendlier and happier. That, in turn, enforces the same emotion on to you!

Re: A 70-year-old's secret to a full and happy life

#16

Post by rnernento » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

Ok Boomer.

Re: A 70-year-old's secret to a full and happy life

#17

Post by GarrisonPrime » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

callesgg wrote: post #6

The secret is lie about how happy your life is. To others to yourself. To everyone.

Or perhaps the true lie is the one evolution has programmed into us, to believe that things "should" be better.

Re: A 70-year-old's secret to a full and happy life

#18

Post by peristeronic » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #13

bitfhacker wrote: post #2

It's similar to the half glass of water... Do you see the glass half full or half empty?

Wait. You got a glass ? Lucky.

House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

Re: A 70-year-old's secret to a full and happy life

#19

Post by Pistos2 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

Here's something I sometimes tell people:

Contentment comes when "the way you want it" and "the way it is" overlap enough -- but sometimes in life, you can really only change one of those.

Re: A 70-year-old's secret to a full and happy life

#20

Post by yters » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

When I step back and look at my life, I have to say it is pretty good. I get agitated when I lose perspective and magnify some particular bad thing. Also, as a Christian, this gives me the ultimate relief, because I can step back and say whatever unimaginably horrible thing is happening God is ultimately in control orchestrating things for maximal good, of which maximal good is also at some fundamental level in line with my intuition of maximal good, so I'll be satisfied in the end of it all. And if God doesn't exist, then nothing matters anyways, so why worry? Either way, no reason to worry in any ultimate sense. Sort of like the opposite of Pascal's wager. Worry has no rational basis regardless of one's worldview.