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Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

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Re: Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

#81

Post by zarkov99 »

DeRock wrote: post #75
wiradikusuma wrote: post #28

It could be Asian thing (I'm Asian), but there's a saying, "Money can't buy happiness, but it sure hell better crying inside my BMW than crying outside by the street."

"Money can't buy happiness, but you can distract yourself with consuming luxury goods" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. These types of quotes tire me (and ones like it, "have you ever seen anyone sad on a Jet ski?"). They ignore the very real human condition of yearning for meaning from existence. Pretending like this can be solved with symbols of status and consumption is misguided.

Money gives you freedom from many things that can make you (very) unhappy. This isn't sufficient for happyness but its a good start.

Re: Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

#82

Post by np- »

I feel like the problem may be that we have a distorted view of "success" and what it means. Success is much more than a one-dimensional goal of earning more money. Are you really considered successful if that's all that you accomplished? Success itself encompasses many of the goals espoused in the article, such as having quality relationships and being able to take time for yourself. I think it's a perspective problem. You aren't successful just because you did well in your career. There's much more to it than that.

Re: Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

#83

Post by tfwwtn »

WalterBright wrote: post #56
jonnymiller wrote: post #8

This resonates with my own experience: "Although most people look forward to vacations and days off, most successful people I know dread them."—working more hours was a socially acceptable route to not dealing with my own sh*t.

I enjoy my work quite a bit. Vacations, not so much. I like the challenge, I like being in the game. I have no plans to ever retire.

Hell yeah.

Re: Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

#84

Post by deadwing0 »

philwelch wrote: post #44
Cerium wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your thoughts on the (in my experience more common) phrase: "I would rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle"? When I really consider this phrase it brings tears to my eyes.

That happens to me sometimes, but when it does, I find the leather seats in my BMW very comforting.

But the leather won't even soak up your tears.. ;_;

Re: Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

#85

Post by philwelch »

deadwing0 wrote: post #84
philwelch wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That happens to me sometimes, but when it does, I find the leather seats in my BMW very comforting.

But the leather won't even soak up your tears.. ;_;

I have a silk handkerchief for that. Wouldn’t want to damage the leather ;)

Re: Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

#86

Post by senectus1 »

jonnymiller wrote: post #8

This resonates with my own experience: "Although most people look forward to vacations and days off, most successful people I know dread them."—working more hours was a socially acceptable route to not dealing with my own sh*t.

I've noticed that in the last 10 years or so I've started treating "my own Sh*t" as "another job".

So my holidays are now, just another form of work. I literally cant remember the last time I've had a "holiday" where I just unwound and was decadently lazy for the whole time. I work, I go home and work. I book time off under the guise of holidays but really I work on other work.

I kid and say "this is the way" but really I suspect it might not be healthy.

Re: Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

#87

Post by Nasrudith »

adamredwoods wrote: post #30
t0mmyb0y wrote: post #2

8. Don't overtly screw people on the way up. Most 'wealthy & successful' people I have known screwed people and never learned how to not do that and ended up paranoid about everyone since they don't know who they screwed.

In my opinion, I would maybe rephrase this as exploitation. "Business success" (define as you see fit), accompanies exploitation. "Screwing" people, could fall under exploitation, but feels more malicious, whereas exploitation can take many forms and is commonly accepted. It can be exploiting a rules loop hole, exploiting worker pay, exploiting current wealth status, exploiting someone's social connections, etc. Expl…

That concept of exploitation makes zero sense on a microeconomic or macroeconomic level. If there is any money available to expand that is charging more money than they need to survive. A company could always pay their workers more unless it brought them to precarity - even the actual workers wouldn't want that and they are the direct beneficaries of said excess! That would be like your drug dealer staging an intervention.

Re: Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

#88

Post by Nasrudith »

notacoward wrote: post #46
gaukes wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Narcissism isn’t necessarily characterized by strength even though we imagine the quintessential narcissist people to be “strong” and “driven”. That may be true in their professional lives but not personal. Narcissists are driven by external validation and appearance, yes. So much so that they forget the people most important to their lives are humans too, not tools or ornaments of achievement. When these relationshi…

Nobody's defending narcissism. My objection was to reflexively associating these problems with narcissism, and by answering only in the context of narcissism you're still equating the two. So let me even more blunt: that theory is so weak that it's almost self-refuting. Let's try to apply it to the OP and see just how badly it goes. The first item on the list is inability to celebrate. How does that suggest narcissis…

Really many on the list seems far more neuroticism or compulsion than narcissism in either the clincial or colloquial sense. "Good habits" to an excess.

Re: Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

#89

Post by hyuuu »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #28

It could be Asian thing (I'm Asian), but there's a saying, "Money can't buy happiness, but it sure hell better crying inside my BMW than crying outside by the street."

that's not a saying, that's a quote from a dating contestant on her dating criteria.
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