One approach I consistently found to work well is to remove things that don't make me happy. It has a bigger longer term effect than doing|buying more.
A researcher on how to live a happy life
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Re: A researcher on how to live a happy life
#42So if you ask people if they’d be happier living in California or the Midwest, most people say California. Actually the regions have comparable life satisfaction, but people say California because they think of the weather and fail to take account of other things, such as the fact that California is full of tedious hippies. The author does not cite research about about how "tedious hippies" make people sad, nor demog…
There are some widely agreed upon truths that need no citation :)
Re: A researcher on how to live a happy life
#43For me, I have become happier in the moment via insight meditation, which focuses on noticing thoughts and feelings without action or reaction. Part of the wisdom of meditation lies in the following: There is baggage we all carry, the self, this belief we're the center of it all, the author of (and subservient to) our own thoughts. How do I stop doing what makes me unhappy, if that's "who I am"? But, in reality, I ca…
Changing your mind is almost as good as changing the world. That speaks to the point of controlling what you have control over and also the fact that our experiences is the only way we have if perceiving the world
Re: A researcher on how to live a happy life
#44There's a bit of a trap here that I find myself standing in.
Parts of our culture are participatory. You get social benefits from going through the same things as your peers. When you stop getting sucked into things by your insecurities, you become non-participatory. You miss out on chances to connect with other people. There is no bonding experience for you, but there is for everybody else. It can be kind of alienating.
Imagine you are watching a new movie with people. 15 minutes in your think, "Hey, this is a retelling of a story by [Shakespeare,Brontë]", or "Oh geeze, the nerdy guy is the killer and everyone has dismissed him despite the foreshadowing." You now know the story arc, and so the roller coaster ends for you (unless the director is exceptional - Ron Howard, Apollo 13). Everyone else is having a great time. You're still having a good time, but you're paying more attention to the production values or the emotional range of one of the actors. You aren't part of the same experience, and you are gonna have a tough time participating in the conversation. Whatever you do, don't tell them you knew what was going to happen all along, Mr Buzzkill.
There are plenty of idealogs who would insist this isn't a problem. Your need to belong is just another hang-up you need to deal with. That you should let go of that too. But I don't think many of those idealogs ended their lives forgotten and alone because they never built a connection (or inter-generational connection in particular) with other people.
Re: A researcher on how to live a happy life
#45A lot of the points in the article coincide with ideas from the blogger Mr. Money Mustache, who frequently reminds that overcoming hardships is a primary source of satisfaction in life. One example is his piece on the desire for luxury as a weakness, which we should reprogram ourselves to get rid of:
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/29/luxury-is-just-an...
Re: A researcher on how to live a happy life
#46“Virtue is facing the fact of what is and the facing of the fact is a state of bliss.” - J. Krishnamurti
Re: A researcher on how to live a happy life
#47For me, I have become happier in the moment via insight meditation, which focuses on noticing thoughts and feelings without action or reaction. Part of the wisdom of meditation lies in the following: There is baggage we all carry, the self, this belief we're the center of it all, the author of (and subservient to) our own thoughts. How do I stop doing what makes me unhappy, if that's "who I am"? But, in reality, I ca…
Very insightful. Please share more.
I’ve been taking up meditation and bubiddism but still very much a novice. I find that as you open your mind and see through more things, in a way things gets less interesting. It’s that feeling that you’ve seen this movie before. Maybe this is normal for older people but I’m in my 20s and it feels very odd.
How do you deal with that and not feel like a zombie.
Re: A researcher on how to live a happy life
#48>Almost no one thinks about actively retraining the way they think. In fact, I don’t think this last one even crosses most of our minds.
"Retraining the way we think" has come up in (almost) every homily I've heard in Catholic masses. Many of us, besides thinking about it whenever we happen to think about it, make sure we do this every week (if not more).
Re: A researcher on how to live a happy life
#49As a very happy person, perhaps I can give some advice :)
One thing that's surprisingly powerful is changing your perspective or telling yourself that you're happy. Similar to faking confidence, in a way: it starts fake but eventually you'll be actually confident, and you won't need to fake anything. Maybe the word "fake" isn't the right one here; I think a good analogy is starting an engine - the first few turns of the engine are artificial but what follows is quite real. As the article says, most of our happiness level comes from our mind, and you control your mind. Thinking something makes it true in many cases: research has shown that people get convincingly drunk or high just from thinking they are (being given a placebo.)
"Do more of what you like" is decent advice too, but it doesn't always align with happiness. I like swimming, eating pizza, and going to thrift stores. But I've tried, and doing more of those things didn't make me happier. I like biking, traveling, and photography - doing more of those did make me happier! And I don't like putting my phone away for a week, or doing chores that I put off, but those things do make me happier. My advice would be to experiment, and take notes.
Changing my lifestyle completely has also been good for me. It gives me time to look back and see what I really thought about a three hour commute or an unusual diet or unlimited data. Even things as mundane as new socks or a better phone case have made a difference for me. And there are some surprisingly big things I don't care about at all.
I think trying to improve your happiness in ways like these is generally good for you, though I'd caution against making it into an obsession. Pretty much everyone I've seen that's obsessed with a quest for happiness didn't seem very happy. I think there's another piece of the puzzle - being able to just be content - and for some that may be the hardest part of all.
Re: A researcher on how to live a happy life
#50There's a bit of a trap here that I find myself standing in. Parts of our culture are participatory. You get social benefits from going through the same things as your peers. When you stop getting sucked into things by your insecurities, you become non-participatory. You miss out on chances to connect with other people. There is no bonding experience for you, but there is for everybody else. It can be kind of alienat…
What's the problem? You can enjoy the movie and talk about the connections to Bronte and the little clues the movie showed.
The problem seems to be less that literature is derivative, and more that the viewer is looking for reasons to dismiss things instead of reasons to enjoy them.