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

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

#21

Post by rwnspace »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #10
ericajohnson wrote: post #3

Dr. Bik Kwoon Tye could be a poster child for Dr. Seligman's work in the field of positive psychology! This story reminds me so much of a book I just finished reading: The Happiness Advantage. "Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will…

God I tortured myself growing up thinking that once I achieved the next big goal I would “be happy”. I don’t know why it took me 30+ years to realize that state was never achieved, I just have to be happy now without waiting for it to happen to me.

I wonder if it took 30+ years because your young adult brain was geared toward perceiving 'carrots and sticks'.

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

#22

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

ericajohnson wrote: post #3

Dr. Bik Kwoon Tye could be a poster child for Dr. Seligman's work in the field of positive psychology! This story reminds me so much of a book I just finished reading: The Happiness Advantage. "Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will…

Does it? A lot of the people I know who've accomplished significant things did so not because they were happy, but because they tried harder than anyone else. They were not satisfied with the way things were and put a lot of effort into changing them. I myself didn't lose half my bodyweight because I was happy, quite the contrary, I hated --and still hate-- my body. That kind of motivation is incredibly helpful for overcoming the suffering required to accomplish big things.

Success will not make you happy, this my experience agrees with, but I'm equally sure that happiness will not make one successful.

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

#23

Post by Diederich »

I was raised by my grandparents. They were born in the 1910s, and grew up in the midwest during the dust bowl and great depression. My grandfather lost most of his buddies in Guadalcanal and Burma during World War II, and, in his own words, fully expected to become worm food himself.

He said little, but one phrase he did repeat more than any other was simple: "Any day you're breathing is a good day." To him, every day, every year, every one of the six decades past 1944 was a cherry on top gift.

Growing up in the 1970s in the United States, conducting nuclear attack drills with regularity, many of us felt that it was fairly likely that we would be incinerated before our 21st birthdays.

"Every day you're breathing is a good day."

There are certainly limits to these 8 simple words, but radical gratitude is at their core.

It's quite likely that everybody reading this post is having a FAR better life than 99.9% of every other human being who exists and has ever existed.

I'm a generally happy person because, from a young age, I have chosen to focus on that simple truth.

This perspective need not lead to complacence. Those who know me will say that I've always been a driven person, personally and professionally.

Every day you're breathing is a good day. Thanks, grandpa, for the wise words. He would have celebrated his 100th birthday last month.

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

#24

Post by d1zzy »

callesgg wrote: post #6

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

There is a lot of truth to "ignorance is bliss", a healthy dose of ignorance is often times necessary.

What do you really gain by being all knowledgeable (and miserable)? Life is not a videogame that you win at the end by learning more than other people, instead it's a game that we all LOSE when we die, so to my eyes the only thing we should optimize for is to be happy while we live. If knowing more things make you happy, go for it but keep an eye on the potential negative effects on one's mood/happiness that I find inherent in knowledge.

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

#25

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

callesgg wrote: post #6

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

The secret is something else, I think: happiness is a temporary emotion. It is not meant to be a constant long-term state of being. What people really want is contentment, but because the narrative tells them they must be happy all the time they seek that out instead, and through suffering often achieve it for moments at a time before returning to baseline. Then they have to set a new goal for the next hit.

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

#26

Post by [deleted] »

Diederich wrote: post #23

I was raised by my grandparents. They were born in the 1910s, and grew up in the midwest during the dust bowl and great depression. My grandfather lost most of his buddies in Guadalcanal and Burma during World War II, and, in his own words, fully expected to become worm food himself. He said little, but one phrase he did repeat more than any other was simple: "Any day you're breathing is a good day." To him, every da…

[deleted]

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

#27

Post by anon9001 »

yters wrote: post #20

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…

That's funny, because as an atheist, I can step back and say that for whatever unimaginably horrible thing that's happening, it's all just a random walk.

So I find satisfaction in that nothing matters anyways, and the best we can do is try to live a good life while we're here, and not take any of it too seriously. Because it's all random and largely out of my control, there's no rational basis for worry.

It's nice to see a Christian that reached the same conclusion with a totally different process :)

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

#28

Post by retube »

Diederich wrote: post #23

I was raised by my grandparents. They were born in the 1910s, and grew up in the midwest during the dust bowl and great depression. My grandfather lost most of his buddies in Guadalcanal and Burma during World War II, and, in his own words, fully expected to become worm food himself. He said little, but one phrase he did repeat more than any other was simple: "Any day you're breathing is a good day." To him, every da…

Indeed. To select one data point: had you been born in Russia in 1923 you had only a 32% chance of making it to 1946. infant mortality, famine and then WW2 meant that 68% of the 1923 cohort died before they were 23.

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

#29

Post by brmgb »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #22
ericajohnson wrote: post #3

Dr. Bik Kwoon Tye could be a poster child for Dr. Seligman's work in the field of positive psychology! This story reminds me so much of a book I just finished reading: The Happiness Advantage. "Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will…

Does it? A lot of the people I know who've accomplished significant things did so not because they were happy, but because they tried harder than anyone else. They were not satisfied with the way things were and put a lot of effort into changing them. I myself didn't lose half my bodyweight because I was happy, quite the contrary, I hated --and still hate-- my body. That kind of motivation is incredibly helpful for o…

> Success will not make you happy, this my experience agrees with, but I'm equally sure that happiness will not make one successful.

Well, if you allow me, what does being successful actually mean ? What is the point of your definition of successful if it doesn't make you happy ?

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

#30

Post by david-gpu »

yters wrote: post #20

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…

> And if God doesn't exist, then nothing matters anyways, so why worry?

I'm not trying to start a pointless debate, your comment really made me curious.

Let's imagine the Christian god doesnt't exist. How does that logically lead to nothing mattering?

As a lifelong atheist there are plenty of things that matter to me: the well-being of people (particularly those around me), peace, justice, climate change, etc. Are these goals not valuable in themselves?

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