61–70 of 195 posts
Money gave me stability. Stability allowed me to have time for introspection. Introspection allowed me to target issues in my life. Fixing those issues is lowering my discomfort in life. Money won't fix anything for you but it will provide you an environment where you can.
There is nothing which will make you happy. You must choose to be happy. There is no job, no amount of money, no relationship, which will make you feel whole and happy and content and done. The opposite doesn't hold - there are jobs and relationships and financial strains which will certainly keep you from being happy. The goal isn't for a job or a relationship to make you happy. It's to enable other things which are…
Very true, but once you make the decision, all those other things are multipliers. Just unfortunately, if you make the negative decision, well the negative still multiplies too.... hence the divorces and all the drama at work.... If you took away my marriage and job, I would be markedly more unhappy. I imagine if I ever have a big wad of cash sitting around, I would be a bit less happy if that disappeared too (only b…
There is nothing which will make you happy. You must choose to be happy. There is no job, no amount of money, no relationship, which will make you feel whole and happy and content and done. The opposite doesn't hold - there are jobs and relationships and financial strains which will certainly keep you from being happy. The goal isn't for a job or a relationship to make you happy. It's to enable other things which are…
Happiness is an emotion, it comes and goes. Even the premise of "are you happy?" is missing the point. Are we talking about feeling happiness twice as much as feeling sadness? 4x, 10x? Sadness can come from things outside our control. I think a better goal is are you present? Are you listening to yourself and to what you really want for your life? Everyone will want different things but making an emotion the goal is…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Happiness is an emotion, it comes and goes. Even the premise of "are you happy?" is missing the point. Are we talking about feeling happiness twice as much as feeling sadness? 4x, 10x? Sadness can come from things outside our control. I think a better goal is are you present? Are you listening to yourself and to what you really want for your life? Everyone will want different things but making an emotion the goal is…
I don't believe happiness is an emotion. Joy is an emotion, it comes and goes. But happiness is more than this, it can be a perpetual state of consciousness and comes in parallel to emotions.
There is nothing which will make you happy. You must choose to be happy. There is no job, no amount of money, no relationship, which will make you feel whole and happy and content and done. The opposite doesn't hold - there are jobs and relationships and financial strains which will certainly keep you from being happy. The goal isn't for a job or a relationship to make you happy. It's to enable other things which are…
It's not a choice.
Jordan Peterson, who for a long time I wrote off as a crackpot until I actually paid attention to some of his interviews and lectures, talks a lot about this. Happiness is a pretty crappy goal to have. It's a side effect of pursuing actual, worthwhile goals. People need to take some responsibility for their own state of mind and the things they are choosing to do that affect it.
Money gave me stability. Stability allowed me to have time for introspection. Introspection allowed me to target issues in my life. Fixing those issues is lowering my discomfort in life. Money won't fix anything for you but it will provide you an environment where you can.
>Money gave me stability. The lows are very different when you have money and when you don't have money. When you are struggling financially and a single event (e.g. car breaking down) can spiral into wrecking your entire life, you it's hard to "let go" of that. When you are financially stable there are a lot of frustrations (e.g. work stress) you can learn to cope with, control, or let go of.
When I was unemployed for a while even the smallest problem was all-consuming because I had to worry about losing my last money and everything else.
Money gave me stability. Stability allowed me to have time for introspection. Introspection allowed me to target issues in my life. Fixing those issues is lowering my discomfort in life. Money won't fix anything for you but it will provide you an environment where you can.
Wealth creates discomforts and tells you that you need wealth to alleviate them. Don't buy into it the hype too much.
“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yours…
Not advocating hanging yourself, but it is something you will never regret since if done "successfully" you will cease to exist and therefore not be able to regret anything.
Maybe there won't be an opportunity for regret, but it's certainly not definitive.
Overall I agree with the article, and would gladly trade my high paying job for one that I actually enjoy, as long as I could be sure that I can make ends meet. The one disagreement I have is the assertion that we should be happy making "just enough" money that we need. "just enough" can change due to circumstances outside our control, so earning more than enough gives you some cushion for when things don't go as pla…