Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

hintjens.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 171 posts

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#111

Post by pdimitar »

refurb wrote: post #64
pdimitar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your comment a lot. Don't think of me as a nitpicker, I simply want to add a nuance to this statement: > Reminding yourself of everything you could lose drives some appreciation for what you have, whatever it is. I have observed many people having trouble with that and I agree with you that this is very much needed in our lives to give us some humility. That being said, to some people -- myself included…

Interesting comment on appreciation. It’s not easy by any means and I’ve found myself fall into thought patterns where I start to feel like I’ve been cheated by life. But at least for me, a lot of it is driven by distraction. Work becomes overwhelming. Or family becomes too hard to juggle. So caught up in what’s in front of you that you lose the big picture. Where I’ve found clarity is in the “being present mindset”.…

I don't disagree with what you are saying but you are saying it to the wrong person.

I am acutely aware how fleeting time is, believe me. It's just that most of my life I've been way too stressed to do anything about that. It's a death spiral.

If you came to me 5 years ago and told me "just relax, man, take your time" you'd likely receive a fist to the face and I'd yell at you: "THAT'S NOT AT ALL HELPFUL RIGHT NOW, SHUT UP!".

You likely live in an environment where realizing the things you mention is 99% of the battle so your advice is optimized towards that. You have to understand however that in most of the world the 99% of the battle is not being smart of understanding these things; most people around me are well-aware of them by the time they hit 23 at the most. Our 99% of the battle is allocating the time and energy to live in the present and just manage to have any leisure at all.

For many us just stopping to smell the flowers is physically impossible because we'd lose valuable capital (in one form or another) if we do it even for 30 minutes. Yep, I am not exaggerating, my life has been hell in the past.

So don't get me wrong as well -- your perspective is valuable. Just not to me and to many others who found that out ages ago and are now extremely saddened because they can't employ this wisdom yet.

Currently in my life I am fighting tooth and nail to be able to start living my life under the principles you mention. It's the hardest thing I ever did but IMO it's worth fighting that battle.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#112

Post by kordlessagain »

kcrx wrote: post #94
vgchh wrote: post #89

Few changes that have helped me greatly towards a happier life are: 1. Cutting out alcohol 2. 15 minute meditation before sleeping 3. Regular exercise - e.g from YouTube 4. Eating less…sort of intermittent fasting 5. Reminding myself to do actions/thoughts that my soul would approve of. Others can do what their soul approves of or not. This has been especially useful. For example I am no longer hurt if someone is bei…

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?

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#113

Post by Ensorceled »

pdimitar wrote: post #37

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 to me it seems that us the modern people are pressured much harder than previous generations.

Both my grandfathers were farmers who also had additional jobs to make ends meet. My paternal grandfather worked 365 days a year with a day off at Easter and Christmas morning in the lumber camps for several years to save enough money to buy his farm.

This was not unusual for my grand parents generation.

When I was younger, my father worked a full time job and then worked in the lumber mill on the weekend and also ran a trap line to afford our house.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#114

Post by nicbou »

MauranKilom wrote: post #74

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…

This book would have made an excellent article. Nonetheless it has a great premise: you can apply the KonMari method to obligations and get rid of the ones that don't spark joy.

Don't confuse it with the similarly titled book with Mark Manson, which reads as if Shia LaBeouf's motivational video was turned into a book.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#115

Post by refurb »

pdimitar wrote: post #111
refurb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting comment on appreciation. It’s not easy by any means and I’ve found myself fall into thought patterns where I start to feel like I’ve been cheated by life. But at least for me, a lot of it is driven by distraction. Work becomes overwhelming. Or family becomes too hard to juggle. So caught up in what’s in front of you that you lose the big picture. Where I’ve found clarity is in the “being present mindset”.…

I don't disagree with what you are saying but you are saying it to the wrong person. I am acutely aware how fleeting time is, believe me. It's just that most of my life I've been way too stressed to do anything about that. It's a death spiral. If you came to me 5 years ago and told me "just relax, man, take your time" you'd likely receive a fist to the face and I'd yell at you: "THAT'S NOT AT ALL HELPFUL RIGHT NOW, S…

Oh I’m certainly not telling you it’s a solution or that it’s easy (and I think you get that). It’s just what has worked for me (based on my own perceptions).

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#116

Post by refurb »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #93
refurb wrote: post #41

To me it’s all about expectations (realistic or not) and wether they are met. Expect to be poor and if you hit middle class you’ll be happy and grateful. Expect to be rich and the same outcome will produce depression. Not to sound like a stoicism fanatic, but that’s one aspect that helps. Reminding yourself of everything you could lose drives some appreciation for what you have, whatever it is. And yes, acknowledgeme…

>Reminding yourself of everything you could lose drives some appreciation for what you have, whatever it is. Does that actually work for some people? Thinking about loss usually gives me a dragon like need to hoard, and guard the hoard.

My phrasing was poor. And again, I’m not a “stoicism is the answer” type person, I’ve just noticed an overlap of my own thoughts and what stoicism offers.

It’s not so much reminding yourself of everything you could lose. It’s more like “hey my friends wife’s got cancer and might die from it”.

Instead of saying “I feel bad for them and lucky it wasn’t me” the thought is “that could have just as easily been me” and “that could be me next year”.

It’s the realization that you’re not special. All the maladies that afflict your peers could just as easily afflict you.

That attitude definitely helps to clarify priorities. When you partner says “let’s go out for breakfast” instead of saying “we can do that another day, I have a meeting”, you decide to go because who knows what tomorrow brings?

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#117

Post by UncleOxidant »

zephyr9 wrote: post #104
UncleOxidant wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but to me it seems that us the modern people are pressured much harder than previous generations. I don't think this is even close to true. In fact we've got it pretty soft compared to many earlier eras. Think about having to wake up prior to daybreak to feed the animals, milk the cows, start fires for cooking, heating (a lot of wood chopping), etc. Having to haul drinking water. Scratching out a subsistence living…

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…

> Capitalism has changed that a bit now though.

So Capitalism has only recently taken hold of the US?

> As for whether people face more psychological pressure than previous generations, yeah there are plenty of people whose job it is to record and measure this stuff, and they all seem to say it has increased.

Even worse than it was during The Great Depression leading into WWII? Even worse than it was if you were black in the Jim Crow south? Things aren't great now, but let's try to keep things in perspective.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#118

Post by areichert »

A few years ago, I was dealing with some issues around anxiety, so I made a little app for myself to track my daily activities against my mental health (in the form of 3 assessments [0] measuring depression, anxiety, and well-being)

I spent about 9 months logging, and found these to be the top 5 activities that improved my overall happiness:

- 1. Strenuous exercise (e.g. going hard at the gym, playing a sport, taking a dance class, etc.) was a clear winner. (Going for a walk or doing light bodyweight exercises at home helped a bit, but not nearly as much.)

- 2. Creative activities (e.g. writing, playing music, programming), particularly when I could get into a "flow" state.

- 3. Reading long-form content (for at least 20 mins).

- 4. Meditating (for at least 5 mins).

- 5. Spending time with close friends (as opposed to e.g. going to parties with acquaintances).

A lot of these things are fairly obvious (and may also vary a bit by personality type) but being able to see concrete, quantifiable results made it much easier to adopt habits that made me happier in the long run!

[0] https://github.com/reichert621/health/blob/master/server/db/...

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#119

Post by watwut »

zephyr9 wrote: post #104
UncleOxidant wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but to me it seems that us the modern people are pressured much harder than previous generations. I don't think this is even close to true. In fact we've got it pretty soft compared to many earlier eras. Think about having to wake up prior to daybreak to feed the animals, milk the cows, start fires for cooking, heating (a lot of wood chopping), etc. Having to haul drinking water. Scratching out a subsistence living…

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…

> 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.

That is not plausible. And that is not what you find where we have written texts about farmers lifestyles. And, if you look in very recent history about lifestyles in behind-the-times villages, you don't find that much slack either.

Also, pretty much all arguments about how little farmers worked I have seen ignored pretty much any work that did not involved food crops directly: making and fixing tools, beds, buildings. Making candles. Raising and spinning flax to make linen. Sewing cloth, bedsheets etc. Chopping wood. Caring about children and animals. All that had to be made at home or at least inside village. In an interview with old lady from such village, I heard her saying that making bedsheets and all that for bride took years. They started making it when girl got born.

> That 30-40 year lifespan is also a myth. High mortality brings down the average, but people's lifespan has been around 70 throughout history.

Yeah, mortality tends to bring down the lifespan average. I don't see how you can meaningfully measure lifespan while removing people who died from the pool. Women dying in childbirths, which was not exceptional at all, should lower the estimated lifespan. People dying from accidents that could be saved today too.

> As for whether people face more psychological pressure than previous generations, yeah there are plenty of people whose job it is to record and measure this stuff, and they all seem to say it has increased. This just may not fit with your boomer perspective.

These statistics don't really exists of old farmer communities. They did not had modern diagnostic criteria, all that was created much much later. We can guess from what people wrote in literature and chronicles.

As for psychological pressures, there was serfdom, slavery, impressment, wars. "Wars" meant armies stealing food from farmers, that is how armies fed themselves. There was poverty too. But of course, a lot depends on which period and which place and which social class you talk about. Nevertheless, generally, people in the past were in fact subjects to stress.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#120

Post by TimPC »

virtualritz wrote: post #12

'Commute less' should be taken with a grain of salt unless one talks about cars. Any form of transport I take where I am not driving the vehicle myself gives me time to read, relax, think – even meditate (trains are great for this). I know for a fact that I read most books/month in my life in times I had a job that included at least 20 mins of commute (one way) on public transport.

I used to be very big on commuting less. Then my wife got pregnant and suddenly it was more important to be in the right school district and close enough to my parents that they can come over regularly to visit and help. I find that shortening other people’s commutes to you changes their behaviour in ways that involve seeing you far more. Shortening your commute adds time to your day but doesn’t really change the things you can do in that time. These days I value the extra interactions far more than the extra time. For what it’s worth in non-COVID times I’m a subway commuter who mostly reads on the subway.
Post reply on HN