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Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

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Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#92

I agree with all of the points, apart from one: > Do things you are bad at I would actually offer the opposite advice: do things you are good at. The world today is full of "anyone can do anything" and awards for participation etc. But nothing feels better than being good at what you do. I attribute a large amount of my happiness to doing a job that I'm actually good at. I'm better than 99% of people at doing what I…

You should probably do a combination of things you are good and bad at.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#93
post #41

To me it’s all about expectations (realistic or not) and wether they are met. Expect to be poor and if you hit middle class you’ll be happy and grateful. Expect to be rich and the same outcome will produce depression. Not to sound like a stoicism fanatic, but that’s one aspect that helps. Reminding yourself of everything you could lose drives some appreciation for what you have, whatever it is. And yes, acknowledgeme…

>Reminding yourself of everything you could lose drives some appreciation for what you have, whatever it is.

Does that actually work for some people? Thinking about loss usually gives me a dragon like need to hoard, and guard the hoard.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#94
post #89

Few changes that have helped me greatly towards a happier life are: 1. Cutting out alcohol 2. 15 minute meditation before sleeping 3. Regular exercise - e.g from YouTube 4. Eating less…sort of intermittent fasting 5. Reminding myself to do actions/thoughts that my soul would approve of. Others can do what their soul approves of or not. This has been especially useful. For example I am no longer hurt if someone is bei…

I like this a lot. I’ve struggled with… let’s call it unhappiness a lot in my life. I spent years trying to work through deep emotional things intellectually, but the things that really got me on the right track were:

1. Sleeping 8 hours a day 2. Eating less processed foods & more fruits and vegetables 3. Walking

Simple things, and they all took time to turn into habits, but better health/more energy eventually made everything else so much easier.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#95
Another thing I think that is worth remembering for nerdy, passionate, and driven people is that sometimes the sacrifice you are ostensibly making for your future happiness is worthless or may even backfire.

For the longest time, I felt that persevering past my exhaustion point was virtuous and would pay dividends in the long run. And there were cases where this was true (e.g. meeting a deadline), but otherwise it was just false. Not only was my short-term happiness harmed, but it wasn't even worthwhile. I was working slower and remembering less.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#97

I personally subscribe to the advice given in The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck: You only get to choose your struggles in life. Happiness is the transient feeling in having dealt with a problem. You'll never run out of problems to deal with, therefore, the one thing to care about is what problems you end up engaging with (i.e. "give a f*ck about"). To that end, the ten items presented in the article are decent poin…

A family member visited recently and talked about family drama and how she doesn't want to be a part of it. I realized how I had went years without hearing anything about these parts of the family, and that I was being exposed to the drama by way of "I don't want to be involved with the drama". By engaging I was only stoking the drama further, despite the fact that I don't know these people and they don't know me.

Relatedly, I really love this line from Meditations:

A cucumber is bitter. Throw it away. There are briars in the road. Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, "And why were such things made in the world?"

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#98
> To be happy you must deal with negative emotions. Learn to recognize these in yourself, and deal with them. Anger, self-pity, jealousy, fear, hate, loneliness… set them aside, and let happiness take their place.

And here I was just not setting aside my negative emotions like a sucker.

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#99

I don't disagree with the article in principle, but to me it seems that us the modern people are pressured much harder than previous generations. At 41 y/o I have arrived at most of the same wisdom but I can't see how and where can I implement it. As others commenters said, I wish I could take a pay cut and work on things I love more than my current job. I absolutely can't afford it; not because I can't take the inco…

> but to me it seems that us the modern people are pressured much harder than previous generations. I don't think this is even close to true. In fact we've got it pretty soft compared to many earlier eras. Think about having to wake up prior to daybreak to feed the animals, milk the cows, start fires for cooking, heating (a lot of wood chopping), etc. Having to haul drinking water. Scratching out a subsistence living…

Factually that's true of course but hey, at least you weren't always in debt like most of the people nowadays are. And you got to live around nature and eat actual organic food.

I am not looking to the past with rose-tinted glasses, mind you -- definitely not all of it. And I didn't mean the farm life in particular. I mostly meant the post-WW2 generation. It's well-documented (but I don't keep link because why would I) that their social upwards mobility actually did exist. Very much not the case for most modern people who are just scratching to have subsistence living as you mentioned.

Theoretically we can stretch this argument to infinity but in practice most people are not going anywhere on the social ladder for their entire lives. Let's be honest and realistic and look at how things are today.

> I think much of the pressure we feel is self-imposed striving to keep up with a lifestyle fantasy handed down to us by advertising.

You might be projecting a bit with your statement?

To me, having my own house, no debts and job / business that does not burn me out on a regular basis should not be in the league of "fantasy lifestyle", no. (Oh, and let's not even mention all technology and bureaucracy that by now it's super clear was never meant to make our lives easier.)

Re: Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#100
post #69

I don't disagree with the article in principle, but to me it seems that us the modern people are pressured much harder than previous generations. At 41 y/o I have arrived at most of the same wisdom but I can't see how and where can I implement it. As others commenters said, I wish I could take a pay cut and work on things I love more than my current job. I absolutely can't afford it; not because I can't take the inco…

Financially sure we face more pressure. But let’s be honest that modern society is practically a utopia compared to being drafted into WW2 and facing carnage and death.

Cherry picking makes no argument any favours. :P

I agree on WW2, sure, but after WW2? I've spoken with 30+ elders and they all unanimously agree that life in general was much, much better than today. Mostly in terms of upwards social mobility. An insane amount of very regular bank tellers could afford house, two apartments and 2-3 cars. And to put 3 kids in an university.

Nowadays that's a very questionable endeavour.

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