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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

#61

Post by WalterBright »

Diederich wrote: post #50
retube wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yup, it's good to point that sort of thing out. Most of the history that (I suspect) most of the readers of HN are exposed to will be quite western focused, and yes, a lot of things were fairly bad in the first half of the 20th century in the United States. But damn...things were fucking terrible in a lot of other parts of the world during that time. And more importantly, such terrible times existed, all over the wor…

The Civil War was pretty bad for the US in terms of death rates.

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

#62

Post by WalterBright »

topmonk wrote: post #57

I think human emotional state is nature's tool to get us to procreate and improve the chances of our offspring to survive. If at anytime we become truly happy this hurts these goals. For example, if an old man could be building a wall or an arsenal of bows an arrows, or inventing a better way to go fishing, his tribe would be more likely to survive. But if he just sat there, content to being alive, this is bad for hi…

I'm basically a happy person. But that doesn't mean I'm content to sit on the beach. I can't stand that. I need to be doing something useful.

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

#63

Post by sharkmerry »

yters wrote: post #43
sharkmerry wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is death a "threat"? im not sure what you are intending to say. Epicurus said death is the end of body & soul, therefore not to be feared. Im not sure I agree with that nor the inverse, if god exists, death is to be feared? Why?

The notion of God and and eternal reward or punishment are quite often tied together. It is hard to see one without the other. Hence, if God exists and there is eternal punishment, that is a little bit scary.

>Hence, if God exists and there is eternal punishment, that is a little bit scary

Eternal punishment only exists if you arent a good person right? Heaven isnt eternal punishment?

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

#64

Post by rorykoehler »

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…

Agreed. Also on the topic of complacency it's hard to understand why the 2 thoughts would be linked (as I'm sure they are for many people). You've been given an opportunity so try take advantage. Trying your best is a minimum and I'm not even from the school of protestant work ethic thought. I suspect that conditioning from early age to submit to authority (school) plays a huge part and is ultimately very destructive for society.

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

#65

Post by toephu2 »

Haven't seen anyone talk about it but I believe happiness is partly hereditary. It's genetic (not totally, but it must play a big part, since depression is heredity[1]).

Just think about yourself and your own natural happiness level. For my siblings and I, it seems very similar to our parents. Of course not everyone is this way but I definitely believe some people are born a lot happier than others.

[1]actually the jury is still out on that one

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

#66

Post by Infinitesimus »

devmunchies wrote: post #32

Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli) said (at around 70 as well), "The notion that one's goal in life is to be happy, that your own happiness is the goal... I just don't buy it" I think as we focus on mastery or craftsmanship, happiness finds us. Not everyone, but I'd say modern society is hedonistic—we seek happiness instead of achievement and get neither.

> Not everyone, but I'd say modern society is hedonistic—we seek happiness instead of achievement and get neither.

I agree on the hedonism but I'm not sure the happiness-achievement struggle is as simple. There are plenty of people who have achieved stuff my some metric (fame, wealth, etc.) and are still deeply unhappy

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

#67

Post by jodrellblank »

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…

They say a journey of 10,000 steps starts with a single step. And then you have a journey of 9,999 steps, which starts with a single step. That is, there's never a time when you take 10,000 steps in one go, or when you do an entire journey in one go, the whole journey ends with a single step as well.

Given that the entire journey is single steps, if you take one step and then beat yourself up because one step is nothing, and tell yourself how much of a loser you are for only moving one step, and how other would people disapprove .. that makes the entire journey thousands of steps where you beat yourself up because each step isn't enough. How are you going to face, and endure, such a miserable journey?

By contrast, if each step is a rewarding piece of progress, which you cheer yourself on for, then (in a recursive sense), the entire journey ahead of you unfolds into thousands of rewarding, cheerful pieces of progress encouraging you forwards.

I myself didn't lose half my bodyweight because I was happy, quite the contrary, I hated --and still hate-- my body.

You've worked hard to go from self-hate to self-hate, through thousands of steps each full of self-hate. What kind of progress is that, really? What kind of life is that? In a fraction of the time and effort you could have gone from self-hate to self-approval, without changing anything except thoughts and without doing anything except thinking.

I'm equally sure that happiness will not make one successful.

If you were happy being fat, what use would you have for "success"? What if you die half way through the journey and never reach the end - is success a goal that only exists at one point in time, and if you don't live long enough, you can't have it? Why not feel happy and successful at every moment of calorie counting, grateful at having the opportunity to buy chicken and salad instead of fried chicken and gravy, happy at the scenery around you when you go out to exercise, instead of filling each moment with self-hate and bitterness and what have you?

If every moment you play a tune, you hate how badly you play, and it drives you to play more precisely, but you hate playing and feel bad afterwards, are you better off or worse off than someone who plays imprecisely, but loves every moment they play and can't wait to play more and feels better afterwards?

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

#68

Post by Doingmything123 »

toephu2 wrote: post #65

Haven't seen anyone talk about it but I believe happiness is partly hereditary. It's genetic (not totally, but it must play a big part, since depression is heredity[1]). Just think about yourself and your own natural happiness level. For my siblings and I, it seems very similar to our parents. Of course not everyone is this way but I definitely believe some people are born a lot happier than others. [1]actually the j…

Isn't this the nature vs nurture debate? It seems like this could just as easily be attributed to growing up in a good/happy family. Not to say that genes have no effect, I just think the environment you are raised in has a more significant effect.

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

#69

Post by m0zg »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #54
m0zg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't think "rationally" about death. It's literally incomprehensible to a human mind, when the object of death is that mind itself.

What do you mean when you say you can't think about it rationally? There are enough survivable experiences physiologically similar to death that we can make some pretty good guesses as to what the experience leading up to it is like. And it would be incoherent to talk about the experience of being dead, because it is no experience at all (as before we were born). We know quite a bit about what happens when we die, an…

But they aren't "death" death, like Whoopi Goldberg would say. You can't comprehend something that requires your consciousness to cease to exist in order to fully comprehend it.

In other words, "we" have some abstract ideas about what happens when "we" die, but it's fundamentally impossible for you, the individual, to imagine what happens when _you_ die.

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

#70

Post by Doingmything123 »

topmonk wrote: post #57

I think human emotional state is nature's tool to get us to procreate and improve the chances of our offspring to survive. If at anytime we become truly happy this hurts these goals. For example, if an old man could be building a wall or an arsenal of bows an arrows, or inventing a better way to go fishing, his tribe would be more likely to survive. But if he just sat there, content to being alive, this is bad for hi…

What if the human emotional state is a byproduct of human consciousness. In that way, it isn't something that can just be chopped off as unnecessary. Not to say that it doesn't help with procreation but I think your view point is a little too cynical. What does this suggest about people that don't have kids?
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