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Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

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Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#291

Post by paganel »

niek_pas wrote: post #98
paganel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No ofense to you in the slightest but your comment made me think of the darkest of dystopias. Re-reading it and getting to the "A patient, better driver" part I had to think of an un-patient, bad driver to sort of erase that feeling from my head, the best I could find was this scene with Harvey Keitel in "Bad Lieutenant" [1]. It also helps that I'm a Mets fan and, as such, we are almost never happy. [1] https://www.y…

I think you're missing the fact that these are the 'lyrics' to Radiohead's "Fittier Happier", which is absolutely intended to convey a distopia.

I certainly missed that, thanks for the illuminating me.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#292

Post by zrail »

arbuge wrote: post #256
zrail wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to spend my days being a gentleman scientist and a student of the arts. I want my best work to follow my morning tea in the garden, and I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it. Atop a healthy and happy family, this is all I want from life. I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it.

> I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it. >> I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it. I'd argue this already exists. We're on it right now...

I think HN overlaps a lot with what I imagine from OP's description. I personally would want more content along the lines of showing what random projects people are working on and far less focus on the companies that a particular VC firm happens to back.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#293

Post by bgroat »

hyperman1 wrote: post #128

I had the chance to work with a few people I'd consider genius level. While I'm pretty smart myself, they all have something I don't always have: The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. For example, we were walking trough a hallway. On a wall is an old, damaged, ugly map of my country, half covered with graffiti. I'd walked past it almost every day for half a year. He checks it out, and…

I want to focus on the social power this individual had, and to remind everyone that interested people are interesting

The reason that you're friend was so magnetic was because they could look at an old tattered map, be entertained for an hour, and be open to sharing that experience with those around them.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#294

Post by nicbou »

arbuge wrote: post #256
zrail wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to spend my days being a gentleman scientist and a student of the arts. I want my best work to follow my morning tea in the garden, and I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it. Atop a healthy and happy family, this is all I want from life. I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it.

> I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it. >> I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it. I'd argue this already exists. We're on it right now...

I was thinking of meetup groups when writing that line. Some of them are practically adult show and tell.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#295

Post by morokhovets »

suction wrote: post #150
hyperman1 wrote: post #128

I had the chance to work with a few people I'd consider genius level. While I'm pretty smart myself, they all have something I don't always have: The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. For example, we were walking trough a hallway. On a wall is an old, damaged, ugly map of my country, half covered with graffiti. I'd walked past it almost every day for half a year. He checks it out, and…

Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. I've sort of dabbled in that situation: I made and lost a fortune…

> There's nothing else to it.

Your response seems too generalized as if it relates to everyone. Let me disagree.

I myself can be considered that kind of genius OP is talking about, at least in my earlier days. First 15 years of my career I've never had any (ANY) savings, and most of the time had some amount of debt. But I always felt simple enough to walk away from any situation I don't want to be in and was ready to live in any condition. But I always loved my job, always was super-curious and eager to learn, and employers were always looking for me not the other way around.

I can say that OP is right, at least for some subset of people.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#296

Post by slothtrop »

bko wrote: post #263
suction wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. I've sort of dabbled in that situation: I made and lost a fortune…

> Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. This is bleak way of looking at things. There's one thing to have f-u money but there's another base level of security that lets you leave a job or group and move on without too much disruption. Marriage helps there too. I'm nowhere near "secure for life"…

You're touching on something here. I think real insecurity can be a motivating, albeit stressful, factor particularly in young adulthood (you have lots to gain and less to lose for taking risks) but once you've really experienced it it stays with you. That can lead to conservative, safe choices to avoid unknowns. For those like this it's easy to see why they project that a promise of security would enable them to behave differently, even if it may be irrational.

What stands out searching my memories at that young age is there was little cognizance or care about national/international issues, let alone survival. There was nothing particularly special about what I did with my time (some of it was creative, mostly not), but I was de-facto optimistic about my future. I may have had immediate concerns and worries (I was often lonely too), but they passed. Until they didn't. And I became sufficiently aware for social anxiety and fear of failure to take hold, alongside bad coping habits. Today I have stability, but learned conservative behavior. I have to be conscious about trying to shake things up now and then.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#297

Post by mrtranscendence »

mellavora wrote: post #152
nine_k wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it like this: A lot of resource —> happiness. A lot of resource —> energy for curiosity. A lot of resource —> energy and time for high achievement at work. So happiness is a correlate for staying in high-resource state in a stable manner, which correlates with high achievement, the quality employers seek. Immediately one can consider a trap of unhappiness, similar to the trap of poverty: being worried makes you…

You had me agreeing with you there until you recommended highly addictive drugs with questionable benefit as the primary intervention.

It’s a bit strange to hear antidepressants called “addictive”. It’s true that some SSRIs, for some people, need to be tapered off before stopping (though I think in some cases this is overblown), but they are not habit-forming in the sense that, say, smoking is.

Anecdotally, I’ve gone off Zoloft after years of daily use without any side effects more seriously than temporarily being a little mopey.

As for benefit … we’ll, in raw numbers plenty of people see some benefit. Given the low side effect profile they’re worth trying as a first line of defense for therapy-resistant anxiety and depression. Particularly severe depression may require interventions such as ECT, but for mild to moderate cases a combination of an SSRI and CBT is often pretty effective.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#298

Post by giantg2 »

I was happy and a high performer. Now I'm miserable and a low performer. I think it's bidirectional. Being happy helps make people like you and makes you like your job more, so your rating increases more easily. Having a good rating and being respected in your field helps make you happy. If you're getting crushed at your job, you'll likely be unhappy.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#299

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

bko wrote: post #263
suction wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. I've sort of dabbled in that situation: I made and lost a fortune…

> Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. This is bleak way of looking at things. There's one thing to have f-u money but there's another base level of security that lets you leave a job or group and move on without too much disruption. Marriage helps there too. I'm nowhere near "secure for life"…

Marriage only helps if your partner can support you, if push comes to shove.

If they're incapable of holding realistic employment, and it's all down to you, then you're in a worse situation than being single.

Possible requirements, from best to worst:

(A has job) || (B has job) // Robustness!

(A has job) // B won't have job, but A's is enough.

(A has job) && (B has job) // Cost of living is more than max(A, B) and less than A + B.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#300

Post by istjohn »

_blu wrote: post #101
randomsearch wrote: post #86

Happiness is a temporary feeling caused by a gratifying transition between two states. By that definition, no-one can be happy much of the time. This article is silly. Aim for contentedness and a meaningful life instead. Being content reduces the desire for state change, a major source of unhappiness, and having meaning and purpose in your life will give you a reason to endure the trials of life. A content person wit…

happiness is all about having good relationships in your life. that will give confidence, meaning and the ability to cope with difficulties. Happiness is not a journey inward.

I totally agree and would love to hear a counter argument from your downvoters. Some of this is just semantics around the word "happiness." I would argue that it's silly to pursue a state of perpetual bliss or enthusiastic joy, but we should absolutely pursue something closer to the Greek concept of eudaimonia[1]. Which is to say, we should seek to be healthy, content, live well, and thrive. And I think even in colloquial English we often mean "happy" in this sense. "They lived happily ever after" surely doesn't mean that they had a smile pasted on their faces in perpetuity.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia

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