
Most lives are lived by default - tomp
http://www.raptitude.com/2012/07/most-lives-are-lived-by-default/
======
acabal
I don't like these kinds of posts, because they suggest that happiness is
something just within our grasp, if only we did the exact right thing to grasp
it. In this case, it's suggesting happiness comes in part from questing to
find major change X in your life that will change everything.

But I think that's actually the _cause_ of a lot of unhappiness. It's a
perpetual "grass is always greener" situation. Say you go on this quest to
find the best city to live in. You find a good one, and you're not unhappy.
But you'll always have that doubt: "What if I had quested just _a little
more_? Would I have found an _even better_ city?" And that'll bum you out. It
becomes the anxiety of "what if".

Happiness is being content with the moment you're in. Having good health, a
not-empty stomach, and a roof over your head is already a big step above a
significant portion of the world's population. Now this doesn't mean you have
to become a mindless lump, barely moving from the couch and uninterested in
even the slightest change; but it's a suggestion that perhaps learning to be
happy with what you have, where you are, and with what interests you, is, in
the long run, _precisely what will make you happy_.

~~~
ef4
I agree completely that happiness comes from within.

And yet there is a duality that has always struck me as important, though hard
to explain: it's easiest to be happy when you're striving toward a goal you
believe in. But you need to keep your sense of self, your ego, non-attached to
the outcome of the striving.

That is, you need to invest yourself 100% into doing things that are important
to you, but remain detached from whether you ultimately achieve what you
wanted to achieve.

I think Buddhists call this "skillful attachment".

~~~
theorique
Agreed. The idea is to _act as if_ the outcome of what you were working on was
the most important thing in the world to you, but to place no value on the
actual outcome itself.

~~~
jes
So, I should work to be a great spouse (say), but not care whether I actually
achieve that outcome?

Why not work to achieve things of value precisely because they are of value to
you?

~~~
theorique
Well, it's a paradox.

If you are fixated on the goal, rather than being present performing the
actions that will get you to the goal, you are actually less likely to reach
the goal successfully. Thinking about the goal obsessively is
counterproductive.

Maybe "detach from the outcome" is a better word. Anchor your happiness and
well-being on performing the actions within your control that you believe will
take you to that outcome, and do not make that happiness and well-being
conditional on reaching that outcome.

------
grecy
At age 27 after working as a Software Engineer since graduating, I could see
the writing on the wall. I was "Jamie" as described in this article.

I made a conscious decision right then to turn off the "Life autopilot switch"
as I call it.

I quit my good job, sold all my stuff, and spent 2 years driving 65,000km from
Alaska to Argentina in my little 2 door Jeep. It was a life changing
experience, and I was shocked when I visited my old workplace afterwards to
see the same people, doing the same things, with the same blank expressions on
their faces.

<http://theroadchoseme.com> is my blog of the entire journey.

I'm so passionate about helping and encouraging others to do something
similar, I created <http://wikioverland.org> as a resource for people wanting
to travel in this way. I also give presentations and talks about what I've
done, and will be doing more of it shortly.

I am currently aware of 5 couples driving the Pan-American highway who
directly say I gave them the courage to do it. I have never had a better
feeling in my entire life.

~~~
alaskamiller
I'm about your age and I did the same thing in my early 20's.

I chose the Marine Corps instead of college as my way out. After, I still
didn't have enough so I chose adventures, sold everything, kept nothing to
continually indulge in my wanderlust instead of sitting in a cube.

But...

And I say this with as much love as I can muster to a stranger that I see as a
kindred spirit.

But...

What did you find at the end? Was it nothing? Because that's what I found. I'm
just a tourist.

There's nothing. And one day you might realize all that running, all that
effort exerted, it got you no where.

You might also arrive at the final destination realizing that your existence
and your way to exist is but merely at the mercy of the system.

Your friends that kept doing the same things? With the same blank expressions?

You're not better than them. I thought I was, but the final destination is to
realize you're not.

You exist because they exist. If everyone was going out to do and chase
whatever it is they want there will be no room for you. Ordered society will
succumb to chaos and nothing will be done. There will be no roads for you to
travel, no places for you to tour, no joy for you to find.

In all, there's no blackness for your star to shine.

You have to accept that. And in doing so you might find that the steady ones,
the one that did everything they were told, might end up being the ones that
have the most. Compared to you, the one that gave up to always pursuing
something else.

Because that's actually the immature way of handling life. And that's the
continually reaction I keep getting from people that's done the same thing.
Thinking that the replacement of running for life is somehow worth something
to keep telling others.

That if you're given the lucky opportunity to be born into an environment
providing for a good life in the good part of the world, you should take that
and make good on it.

Because others? In worse places, having to do worse things to survive. They
would do every single possible thing short of dying to be in your position.
Yet you chose to be a tourist. Building nothing, doing nothing, creating
nothing, but indulging in everything.

Do good, be good. Age and experience grants you wisdom that running doesn't
get you any closer to those two things.

~~~
grecy
Thanks for the great insight. I agree on the whole with what you are saying,
though I'm wondering why you choose to describe what I'm doing with my life as
"running"? I'm not running at all, I'm just looking around for the purpose of
learning and adventure. I have nothing to run from.

> What did you find at the end? Was it nothing? Because that's what I found.

I wasn't "looking" for anything, other than to enjoy my life. I enjoyed those
2 years immensely, and without a doubt in my mind, more than I would have if I
stayed at work "on autopilot". That's why I did it - because I wanted to. It's
the same reason you (or anyone) has ever done anything in their life above
bare survival. Because you want to.

>You're not better than them

I've never once thought that for even a second. Actually, I learned on the
drive to look at life (mine and others) from a whole bunch of different
perspectives. Never do I think in terms of "better or worse", always
"different". Just because people are doing something I don't want to, that
doesn't make my way "better", not by a long shot. It just means my choices are
different than theirs.

> If everyone was going out to do and chase whatever it is they want there
> will be no room for you. Ordered society will succumb to chaos and nothing
> will be done

Interesting you should say that. This was one of the greatest lessons I
learned on the whole drive: At the start of Latin America (Mexico) I wondered
why people were so "lazy" and relaxed all day with friends and family while
the roof on their house leaked. I continually thought of ways to try and make
stuff better (in the western sense of the development, etc.) After 18 months,
and many hours pondering and discussing, my Spanish was finally good enough to
have a great conversation about it. A guy in Argentina described it to me
brilliantly. The difference is credit. In the first world, when we want for
example and iPhone, we go and put it on our credit card (or monthly payments)
then work for the next couple of years to pay it back. The connection between
how much you have to work for the iPhone and the joy of owning the iPhone is
very fuzzy. Our society doesn't want us to make that connection, because it
needs us to keep buying stuff, and keep going to work. In the second and third
world, nobody can get credit, so if you want an iPhone, you have to go to work
for a year, save like mad, then buy it outright. Let's be honest, after a week
of full time work any sane person is going to seriously question if they want
a stupid iPhone, realize it's not worth it, so they'll go back to working the
bare minimum and relaxing with friends and family. The end result is that
people in second and third world countries have way less stuff, but have way
more time with friends and family. Also it's worth noting that society doesn't
"collapse". People still have a roof, food, clothes and happiness. I think
about this every day.

> you might find that the steady ones, the one that did everything they were
> told, might end up being the ones that have the most.

The most _what_?

As an aside, do you live in Alaska as your username suggests? I live in
Whitehorse, Yukon these days.

~~~
pnathan
I don't think the Puritan work ethic came out of debt; it came from the
sanctification of work.

~~~
grecy
Could be. I have no idea where it came from or why.

I'm very interested in what it means today, and how I choose to incorporate it
into my life. That's why I really enjoy learning from people that follow it to
a large extent, and those that don't.

~~~
obstacle1
>I have no idea where it came from or why.

It was very likely a product of the Reformation, and almost certainly had
nothing to do with debt. Specifically, the ethic arose from the philosophies
of Luther and Calvin in the 16th century. Prior to L&C, the dominant Catholic
line held that hard work was a means to achieve salvation. Work was
punishment. If you weren't performing good works you would go to hell. Working
hard to serve your god? Good: perhaps you will be saved. But don't work too
hard, because hoarding wealth is a sin. Pay your excess forward to the Church
and it will help your cause in the end.

Luther didn't exactly turn this conception on its head but altered it, which
opened the doors for later change. He believed that work was good because it
served not only the individual but also the social whole. The main expression
of this was a dissolution of occupation-based social hierarchies. For example
Luther rejected that something like agricultural work was inherently less
valuable than a monastic calling. All work had value, and all work had equal
value in the eyes of God. The main thing is that each person was called to
work by God, and to work was to exercise your _noble calling_. This is
basically an inversion of the concept of work as punishment.

Calvin both carried Luther further and branched out. His was probably the
first interpretation of Christianity to state that maximizing profit from
one's work was not only good but also required. This wasn't a call to maximize
profit in pursuit of an easy life, since even rich folk had a duty to perform
hard work. Rather the duty was to improve the Kingdom of God (and one's
society) through investment. This _doesn't_ mean philanthropy or giving to the
poor, rather something like modern capitalism where an individual's investment
(sometimes, often) produces positive effects for those around him. Devoted,
hard workers help to maintain a cohesive social whole, which in turn mitigates
the chaos and disorder that might stem from idleness.

Underlying Luther's and to a greater extent Calvin's philosophies is the
notion of predestination. Dominant Catholic thought posited that people were
born sinners but could earn salvation over a lifetime. Predestination rejected
this, stating instead that God chooses the saved at birth. That is, you're
either saved or you're not out of the womb, and there's nothing you can do
about it. During your life, you can't know whether or not you are one of the
elect. However you sure as heck want to be, so you do your best to live in the
way you think the elect would live. If you succeeded, this could be perceived
as evidence of your having been chosen to be saved. Hence the social drive to
work extremely hard and produce as much as possible.

The above is probably a bit rambling and somewhat of a bastardization, but
it's generally correct. Given that, I'm not surprised that in a historically
Catholic region you came across a very Catholic take on work, which is at odds
with the conception of work you're used to in historically Protestant America.

~~~
pnathan
This is a fairly correct summation of the theology & attitudes of the Puritan
ethic. Far better than I could have written.

------
nostromo
A friend once told me, "You should try going with the flow once in a while."
She was absolutely right.

Yes, many people could improve their situation by not sleepwalking through
life. But similarly, we (people on HN and other ambitious folks) can learn to
be more content with what life has given us. To reconcile ourselves with
randomness. To take some time away from competition and drive and
optimization.

Perhaps I'm being unfair to the author, but if you follow this article's
advice to the extreme, you'll likely end up extremely unhappy. "Is this spouse
really the best I can do? Should I really be living in this city? Would I be
happier with different friends?"

~~~
tylermenezes
Extremes at either end are bad. Somehow the majority of HN hasn't figured this
out.

~~~
jacquesc
That doesn't seem correct either. Extremes at either end are where
entrepreneurs tend to live. Most people have to be willing to be poor, lose
everything, and fail miserably in order to have a chance to be rich and live
the life they want.

This life obviously doesn't appeal to everyone, and many entrepreneurs manage
to keep a balanced life. But at some point they'll get outmaneuvered by the
ones who move faster and just want it more (and are willing to take the chance
of flaming out in a big way).

~~~
chadzawistowski
>> Extremes at either end are bad.

> That doesn't seem correct either.

A rule that's always appealed to me is "Everything in moderation, including
this rule."

~~~
alxndr
Ha, I had phrased it "everything in moderation, including moderation"

------
rohern
A friend of mine with a dark and cynical wit, with whom I was enjoying a good
dinner at a large and crowded restaurant, looked around him and declared: "So
this is what people do? They just exist."

That is the end of the conversation on happiness and most people for me.
Despite being brilliant and greatly successful in their chosen fields, not a
person I was friends with in school is now in a job that they take joy in.
None of my old coworkers who talked on and on about how they hated their jobs
have moved on to better things. The most contented people I know do not do
very much with their lives. These are not the 'successful' people, nor are
they people with whom I would want to spend an enormous amount of time, as
they do not have much of interest to say.

It has been suggested that melancholia and depression are deeply related to
intelligence and creativity. Good; bring it on. I would much rather have
moments of doubt and darkness and get to enjoy all the fruits of the
intellectual and creative life than the banal calmness of normal existence.

~~~
napoleond
I think you're right, to a point. I do know creative intellectuals who have
found a simple life that pleases them, but as an outsider it always seems to
come at the cost of avoiding certain questions and abandoning certain goals. I
don't judge them for it; in fact I envy them on occasion, but it's not for me.
Nevertheless, it occurs to me that a truly intelligent person who is honestly
optimising for "contentedness" (purposely choosing to avoid the more
connotative "happiness" here) should learn to satisfy themselves with simple
pleasures. People who don't do that are either not truly intelligent, not
truly honest, or don't truly seek to live a contented life (and I'm one of
them).

------
kstenerud
I'm in San Francisco now, running a startup, precisely because I cast off my
old life. It could have gone horribly wrong (and indeed it has on many
occasions), but I couldn't imagine going back to my old job writing Java code
for a bank.

Every now and again I think back to that. At this exact moment, I could be
sitting in my old cubicle, watching that same stretch of bridge under the gray
skies outside my window, thinking of the things that could have been if
only...

The one most important lesson I've learned in casting off from the moorings of
a safe life is that no matter what crazy shit happens, I always find a way to
come out on top in the end, even if there are a few months or even years of
bad times in between. One thing's for sure: I never get bored.

A life of interesting times is not for everyone. You need to have a fairly
high tolerance to uncertainty. You need to be able to improvise, because
things will rarely go according to plan. You need the strength of will to
stand back up even when it hurts. But even with this said, you'd be VERY
surprised at how strong you can be when the need arises.

Not everyone is alike. Not everyone would appreciate this kind of life. But if
you're sitting there in your comfortable life, wondering what it could be
like, stop wondering and just GO!

------
RyanMcGreal
Page isn't loading for me right now. Here's a cache in case anyone else is
having the same issue:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TT52BMn...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TT52BMnE4p4J:www.raptitude.com/2012/07/most-
lives-are-lived-by-default/&hl=en&tbo=d&gl=ca&strip=1)

~~~
michelleclsun
Thanks for the link Ryan.

I resonate with the post a lot. Recently moved to the bay area, after spending
undergraduate years in chicago, working in nyc, hong kong, beijing, I feel
that where we live determines a lot of how we live our lives, and people we
associate with.

I disagree with the comments here that the author is suggesting that happiness
is a goal. He's merely, in my view, presenting the fact that we should strive
to make difficult decisions on our lives before it's too late. Choosing where
we live is one of the most difficult things to change, however, all changes
can start small.

Two years ago I took a sabbatical from my finance job, and never went back. It
was a zig zag path to where I am now, but I would say the inconvenience and
uncomfortable situations are worth it. So many people tell themselves, I'll
stay in this job / city / relationship for one more year, till I get more
experience / savings etc. Making difficult decisions (instead of putting them
off) forces us to clarify our values. We might decide in the end to never
leave the city, or the job, but we are happier because we _decide_ consciously
to, not because we dont' have a choice.

------
yason
The scariest thing in being happy is how much of our everyday lives turn into
meaningless pile of deprecated trade-offs.

Things that you thought meant something for you actually don't. Things that
you thought you'd keep for life actually turn out to be nonimportant. People
you considered close were just vehicles for you: you gave them that love you
didn't know how to give to yourself. And finally, things that you so cunningly
shielded from your gaze for years begin to pop up and become unavoidable
challenges.

That is because you can only be happy when you do things for the right
reasons. Otherwise you just think you're happy and yet you spend your time
trying to fill in gaps in yourself and your life, gaps that you don't know how
to love. In other words, you're sitting on the passenger's seat yourself and
letting what you think other people will think of you drive your life.

Go stand in front of a mirror and ask yourself if you're happy. Are you so
happy that you wouldn't want to change anything in your life? Are you so happy
that while you might certainly _want_ to change some things you would still be
perfectly content should those things actually never change? Ask yourself if
there's some part of yourself that you don't love one hundred percent? Not 99,
but 100? Ask yourself if you see too much fat, a body too skinny, or a person
too unpopular and rejected, or someone who can't steer away from too many bad
habits? Or do you see a person with weaknesses yet _completely accept_ him/her
just the way s/he is?

I'm not entirely happy myself but there have been, and there are, occasional
moments when I am 100% happy.

It's those moments when I wouldn't replace a single _bit_ of myself, whether
it's hemorrhoids, feelings of guilt, or the history of how I've lived.

~~~
rohern
I am not trying to troll you; I mean this question honestly: Why do you care
so much about being happy? I know that is the default goal of most people, but
it seems rather like chasing gold at the end of the rainbow when you have no
reason to think that the gold exists. Do you know of anyone anywhere ever who
has spent the majority of their time 100% or even 80% happy? Was this person a
holder of a medical marijuana card?

I think we would look down on someone who spent their life stoned. I do not
see why this method of achieving the "happy" feeling as any less admirable
than any other method. In the end, you are just striving to be chemically
stoned, though one method uses outside chemicals to achieve this feeling and
the other uses activities and experiences of a non-chemical nature. In the end
you are just striving to put and to keep your brain in some chemical state.
Does not seem like much to me.

Christopher Hitchens -- who has been on my mind much as the first anniversary
of his death is in nine days -- once said that if offered a stress-free and
blissful life, he would not want it, that he likes the feeling of burning the
candle at both ends and the stress of things. Do not make the mistake of
saying that he has redefined happiness for himself to mean the state of
stress, because that is not what we are talking about when people talk about
wanting to "be happy". They mean they want to feel good and joyous. Hitchens
did not say that being stressed and attenuated through effort gave him joy, he
only said that he preferred this state to anything else. I sympathize with him
on this point and take it from me, this is not the same as the "happiness"
that most people are talking about. It is more like a state of satisfaction
with occasional blimps of good humor mixed in with a great deal of unpleasant
emotions. But, stiff upper lip and all that.

I think anyone who imagines that if they start a startup and strike it rich
that, like a Sim, all their need meters will max out at green and they will
feel permanently joyous is completely kidding themselves. This just is not how
life goes. Life does not plateau at joy. It is a constant moving wave.

~~~
yason
Thanks for your point.

I do admit that happiness is an ambiguous word: for some people it's about
merely feeling good and for some people happiness is just a side-effect from
the realization that what you have now is all you can actually claim to
have—the past and the future don't count. The conversation started from
happiness so I sort of bridged over with that word.

I care about living my own life, not somebody else's, and making choices in
life for reasons I'm aware of instead of for reasons I don't. At least for me,
happiness comes mostly about facing the facts of your life and accepting them.

Being stoned isn't happiness, it's disconnectedness. Living a happy life isn't
about that it always _feels good_ but about that it _does good_. But in the
long term that, too, actually gives a good feeling as well.

------
andrewcooke
i've said this before (sorry), but cockburn, in cooperative game, describes
shu ha ri - <http://alistair.cockburn.us/Shu+Ha+Ri> \- as three stages of
mastering something: following, detaching and fluent.

anyway, this post is so second stage it makes me wince.

~~~
Djehngo
Maybe, however I read the original article to mean that the process some
people use to make life decisions is the "following" stage in the context of
shu ha ri.

From what I can understand: It isn't possible to reach the second stage
without first exploring the first as you need to know the baseline to
understand the differences between options. Also it isn't possible to reach
the third stage without the second because you don't have a full intuitive
understanding of what effect each variable has.

Based off this I don't see the post being second stage as a necessary
negative, the aim of the article is to nudge people from the following stage
into the detaching stage.

I imagine when reading the original article people in the following stage have
most potential benefit, people in the detaching stage will agree with the
article and won't learn much (but maybe it will affirm their beliefs a bit)
and people in the fluent stage have surpassed the advice in the article and
will regard it as backwards.

~~~
andrewcooke
i don't really disagree with you (and i felt unfair even when posting).

in my defense, all i can say is that what rubs me the wrong way is not the
process, or the fact that someone is learning, but the _tone_. yes, we're all
on these different stages at different times. but once you acknowledge that,
shouting about any particular one as "the" solution seems a bit strong.
especially when you know that you're going to look back on this particular
point as just one more - perhaps confused - step.

------
niels_olson
Having moved 17 times, (3 times since age 30, and another coming in a few
weeks), there is tremendous opportunity cost to moving. On the plus side, I am
confident that I want to live in coastal California. I am confident I can make
friends wherever I am and I enjoy a large network of friends. But I am tired
of discovering the best pizza, best grocers, best place to get gas, best
routes and detours to work. I am tired of my kids being stressed out in a new
school, my wife looking for an optimal work-life balance. I wish I could raise
my kids within 1000 miles of any family. I am glad for having lived a varied
life so far, but in some ways I am amazed how unvaried varied can be, and the
opportunity cost of that variety.

------
_feda_
I think the post, generally, is accurate, but the author is giving a little
too much slack to those who, according to him/her, don't live by default. For
example, you could argue that Picasso "lived by default"; his father was a
painter, and he painted from very early in his life. So even though he never
made a concieted effort to escape the normal path of his life, he was still
succesfu l by practically any measure.

------
Sumaso
In my opinion unrealized happiness is not equal to grief.

Grief is a negative factor that directly impacts your life, like your car
breaking down, or dreading going home to your spouse.

Grief can be the lack of free time or the abundance of it.

Grief is not I could be x units of happiness happier if I moved to California,
therefore I am x units of happy less than I could potentially be.

I think most people know when something is missing in their life. They know if
they HATE going to their job. They know if they HATE their neighborhood. In
those cases, by all means seeks something better.

Basically this is the same argument has the "I want the best of everything"
articles and the 50 dollar utensils. Many people pointed out you don't need
the best or the worst you need good enough. What good enough is, is going to
change from person to person. However I think we all have a pretty good idea
about what good enough (both materialistically, and philosophically).

Aristotle was right, in my opinion.

------
scott_meade
Lucky for me a life created by happenstance has, so far, turned out to be
rather great. I know I've gotten lucky and am grateful for it most every day.

------
ZanderEarth32
I've always been unhappiest when I sit down and try to decide if I am happy. I
find I am happiest when I am thinking about my situation or life in general
the least.

When reading the post about the example giving of the guy who seems happy I
thought to myself, "this guy sounds a lot like me, why wouldn't he be happy?"
I was disappointed to discover that the only reason he wasn't happy was
because he is basically choosing to be unhappy in what seems like a good
situation.

------
ChristopherM
It's amazing how defensive some of these posts are because the poster has
chosen to live a life by default.

I once thought I wanted to climb the corporate ladder, to buy stuff, toys.
More, more, more...

I made my way into software management back in 2008. I was absolutely
miserable. The routine, wake up to an alarm, get ready, run to work, work on
someone else's ideas, have to listen to someone tell me what to do. When I got
home, I had no energy to work on my own stuff. Work, had stolen all my will
power and mental energy. I consoled myself, by losing myself in movies and
games, drinking.

Then in 2009, I was so miserable I deliberately worked to get terminated with
severance. I was successful. The evening I was fired I was so happy. I was set
for 1 year. I moved from L.A. to San Francisco.

Got an apartment, and started learning all of adobe's tools (my friend got me
a free copy of their top suite, he worked there). I experimented with many
different compression algorithm techniques, I worked on neural networks. Then
after 9 months, and the money running out I took a trip to Budapest Hungary
for 1 month to learn how to make bespoke shoes. I had never in my life been so
happy. I discovered that I hate working for other people, hate it, absolutely
hate it, I'd rather live on the street.

I got back and found a startup where I could make great money, knowing I would
quit at the end of one year. And like clockwork, after the initial enjoyment
of doing something new, getting to write firmware which was something new, it
was time to get out. This time, knowing I was quitting made all the
difference, I didn't get burned out. I wasn't angry. A couple months later an
opportunity arose to do some consulting, 2 months in and I was set. I doubled
my income and got to walk away. 6 months later and the original manager quit,
they needed someone to come in and rescue them, I showed up. Charged twice
what I've ever made. The money was awesome, I paid off a second mortgage
($60k). I saved $100k after tax. After 8 months, couldn't take it anymore.

But this time I had a plan, it was time to start my own company, where I am
the boss, where I can eventually get to the point where I hire other people to
do all the work and I draw income from a business that doesn't consume my
life.

I'm 2 months in on my first company product, it's hard work, but it doesn't
feel like work. I am my own boss, I decide what is important, I don't
interrupt myself with stupid inefficient task switching, there are no office
politics, I don't have to listen to the 'normies' and their pathetic existence
as they skate through life anesthetized.

I love the uncertainty, I thrive on it. To have a predictable mundane life is
walking death. To actually have complete control over my own success and
failure is invigorating. I have 22 months left of runway, and if it fails? So
what, I can always pick up a temporary consulting gig. The experience I am
learning now is making me far more valuable than being an employee ever will.

Some key things I learned, which made this possible:

1) eliminate anyone and everyone negative in my life: friends, family...
anyone.

2) stop hanging around people who espouse and vigorously defend the "normal"
lifestyle

3) surround myself with positive and also like minded individuals

4) take pleasure in simple things, cooking a good meal, reading an interesting
book, going for a bike ride, accomplishing a small milestone.

5) Eliminate debt, do I really need that fancy car? (unless I can pay cash)

6) I got rid of my tv, don't miss it for a second, it just wastes my time

7) Got my living expenses down really low, yet I'm living the richest life
I've ever had.

8) Free time to cook, allowed me to discover that I have a severe gluten
intolerance. Doctor's never figured it out, just told me I was "depressed",
that I needed to eat more fiber (which is gluten). Since I had eaten gluten
almost every single meal my entire life there was no gap to discover how much
better I felt. This would never, ever have happened if I had kept a regular
M-F job. I never had time to cook semolina pizza dough, muffins, cakes and eat
so much that the 1-1 correlation between what I was eating and how I felt
clicked.

9) Don't fear change, embrace it

10) It's easy to make new friends

11) I'm actually an extrovert, it's the people I was surrounded with my whole
life that made me seem like an introvert, I just didn't want to interact with
them.

12) Stop caring what other people think, what makes them happy might make me
miserable (one man's heaven is another man's hell)

13) Be happy so many people choose to take the easy way out, on cruise
control. It makes it so much easier to be successful myself with so little
competition.

14) Be a source for anyone who is also trying to figure out who they are and
what they really want to do.

15) Stop trying to give people advice when it is unwanted.

16) Life is about the journey, not the destination. SOMEDAY STARTS NOW!

* anyone offended please feel free to skip my message, it's not for everyone. My way is not for everyone, it is not a 'universal right way'. But it is most definitely the right way for me, and for any lost souls out there (which I once was). I hope that this post may make them think, think about how to change their life for the better too.

~~~
Kaivo
To your list of key things, I'd add what you described in the first half of
your comment: find where you want to be in your professional life. Not where
you work or anything alike, but which role (in the chain of command) you want
to fulfil.

I know for myself that filling the boss role wouldn't suit me, yet I cannot
let things get decided without being involved. The role I'd like to fulfil is
not the boss but more like the second in command: still a good impact without
as much stress (theoretically). I believe it also depends on the size of
things. I wouldn't mind being my own boss, but not being someone else boss.
That's a reason why I wouldn't dare to start up something from myself.

Also, I found the same thing about myself concerning the fact that after doing
the same thing for several weeks, changes are needed. The time span before
needing change and the size of the change required differs, but I believe
every one feels this need at some point. Personally, just staying curious and
learning news things all the time helps me with that. It's enough to keep me
going on the same job for almost two years.

Concerning the key things, most of them could be generalized and should be
followed by most people. As for the 16th rule, if it was about destination, we
would all be using shortcuts and be there in five minutes.

------
noahhs
I notice the strong demand on HN for empowerment literature. Personal
productivity, existential self-determination, etc.

People write with a sense of being illuminated, of knowing something that
others don’t. A thinking person should not trust such things. All the same, it
can be hard not to check it out--give it some eyeball-time.

I won't lie: I read this crap all the time when it comes up on HN. (One might
speculate as to why.)

Anyway, I notice the patterns these things follow.

\- Laying claim to an illuminated or gnostic truth. Someone who “gets” it,
while others don’t.

\- Hinting that you will benefit if you accept the claim as true.

\- Lastly (optional), appealing to the ego, to the desire to feel superior.

This article was not so bad, in comparison. It stuck to its thesis without
playing too much dirty pool. Its thesis was simplistic (essentially, "take
risks"), which did not interest me that much.

I honestly think people should look more carefully at the rhetoric they feed
on.

------
conroe64
I don't like the premise that happiness is based on what you have, and what
you do with your time. It always seems to be the underlying assumption, and it
drives people to be unhappy to always be striving for better conditions for
themselves.

What gave me happiness is the idea in Buddhism fostering compassion for all
people, including yourself, but not only yourself. It's the one aspect of
Buddhism that most people ignore. Instead they concentrate on inner peace by
quieting their mind or stopping their thoughts, which again is striving for a
change in what they have, (ie. they would gain the ability to quiet their
mind)

I don't mean to be heavy handed, and I'm not trying to force my ideas on
others. I just haven't seen this idea of compassion for people brought up very
often.

~~~
lightningstorm
What if you have a lot of energy yet live in the country without much going
on?

Would you be able using Buddhism to transform yourself to enjoy the
surrounding or you better of moving to a big city with more happening around
you?

I found that by living in different places you discover who you are. Then you
can use the Buddhist approach to cope better with the downsides of living in
the current area.

------
epaga
I find myself strongly disagreeing with the "world view" behind this post -
though the common sensical statement "don't go with defaults all the time" is
great, the post exudes an ego-centrical way of viewing life - make choices
based on what you think will make YOU happy.

The "killer quote" that pushed me over the edge to post this was: "It could be
a major change, like getting rid of your spouse" .... seriously? "Til death do
us part...or I feel like you're not making me happy"?

I do not believe true joy is found in selectively surrounding myself with
people that make _me_ happy and "eliminating" all others. In fact, to act as
if true joy is "just around the corner" if we would simply make the right
changes like learning how to surf is a dangerous illusion to give.

------
cloudkj
This article was surprisingly well written. I think the point that most
resonated with me was the framing of the search for better (happier)
conditions in each of the "major areas" as an optimization problem.

The probability that one's current conditions are anywhere near optimal is
low. Likewise, the probability that you can improve your overall conditions by
making a change in one of the areas is high, since it's not a completely
random change but one that you control.

A sort of real life analog of gradient descent (ascent) or hill climbing, if
you will.

------
tolos
The question I don't know how to answer:

Am I happy because I enjoy my current my current life, or am I convincing
myself that I am happy because I don't want to take chances?

------
level09
I actually agree with the author to a very large extent, based on this, I'm
going to try to move to a new city starting next year ..

~~~
pycassa
you have less than one month..

~~~
jaredsohn
No. The grandparent post just stated an almost 1 to almost 13 month window.

------
theklub
I think the truth is no one is truly "happy". Its just a word that expresses
an ideal emotion that can be felt for periods of time. "Being happy" is also a
industry in itself, think about it.

------
datashaman
Be aware that very things are forever, and life doesn't have to happen to you.
Steer it. I like this article if only because it makes you self aware.

------
kghose
Happiness comes from making sincere efforts in challenging endeavors that at
least some other people think are worthwhile.

------
Kaivo
I believe that the way we perceive our lives depend on our conception of
death. I've always believed that once we die, it's over and we are as
unconscious as we were before our birth. Unfortunately, this belief made me
see everything pointless to some extent. Regardless of how successful I am, in
the end, there's nothing left. Regardless of the sacrifices I do, in the end,
there's nothing left. I know that my life might change other people's life,
but if in the end, if it doesn't matter for me, it doesn't matter for others
either; a sum of 0s returns 0.

Since it is not a feeling I enjoy, I ended up living on a daily basis; Have I
enjoyed my day, Did I really wanted to do that, What should I do to enjoy my
time? I lived mostly in the present for several years, doing a job I enjoyed
at the time, and enjoying my time outside as well. Anything that I didn't want
to do right away wasn't worth doing. It got to the point where I was pushing
away feelings just because I didn't like them, such as regrets or stress from
late tasks.

It didn't pay that well. After a while, I had a lot of late bills (not that I
couldn't pay, I just didn't want to do it right now), I wasn't looking forward
to know what to do with my future, etc. The good thing I learned from that is
looking forward for good feelings and investing myself in what I enjoy.-Turns
out I had a promotion at my job, and I liked my new tasks, and since then,
I've been studying at night to build a career from it.-I also learned to fix
things up in time because when every thing works out well, when you have
nothing due to anyone, you feel better, you feel freed from those
responsabilities for the time being.

I also believe in balance, in the meaning that if you only have good things
happening to you, they aren't actual good things, they are normal neutral
things. You need sadness, bad things, to enjoy even more the good things
happening. Just like peace doesn't mean anything to someone that doesn't know
its counterpart.

Put this altogether, you end up with a range from the worst feeling you can
have, to a middle, to the greatest feeling you can have. I chose to be near
the middle. I don't enjoy having bad feelings, and I prefer to have a neutral
life, with good enough feelings. I doesn't mean that I don't want to suffer,
to go through rough times, it only means I know to which extent I can go on
this range, at which point it's not worth it.

Ultimately, living by default or not is, in my vision and understanding, at
which point you are ready to sacrifice things to maybe get better things on
the other side. Am I ready to sacrifice my marriage to maybe find a better
women? Am I ready to dump friendship to maybe get better? I like the place
where I live enough, it could be better but do I really want to go through all
this work to maybe find something better? I really don't mind living by
default, as long as I don't suffer from it, and I currently don't. Maybe I'll
have regrets later on, but regrets are not worth having, so I'll chase them
away as good as I can.

------
procyon
love this article. I agree with most of the points he made, particularly the
line - "Most of us live seventy or eight years defending what we’ve been
given, because we think it’s who we are."

------
spitx
Dwell on this for a second, if you will.

These days in western societies, quite a few people hold this notion that can
be best summed up as, "Happiness, to a large degree, comes from within"

Or as a corollary, one can use whats been offered by neumann_alfred below:

    
    
      If something in the exterior world makes you discontent,
      then it is not that object which troubles you, but rather
      your judgement of it; yet to blot out this judgement
      instantly is within your power. And if your  
      dissatisfaction is based on the condition of your soul,
      who can prohibit you from correcting your views?
    

However I feel that people resign to this world view essentially due to
powerlessness or the perception of one's powerlessness.

The external world and the facets one finds disagreeable or troubling in it,
just seem too Olympian a task to impact, much less expunge.

This paves the way for one to easily resolve to the aforementioned world view
where one just finds easier to remedy his or her "judgment" of that
disagreeable or "troubling" aspect, rather than engage it.

There must be a label for this phenomenon in the study of strategic decision
making (Game theory).

Please do enlighten, if you're familiar with it.

------
frozenport
Top stories on HN kill servers. <http://www.raptitude.com/> is inaccessible. I
think its HN's moral duty to implement some-kind of caching mechanism for top
rated stories.

------
kahawe
Couldn't this very easily be summed up in a quote like

" _life is what happens to you while waiting for your dreams_ " or

" _Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans_ "

------
bashzor
503 unavailable. I don't know, but I'll bet $10 that this is another Wordpress
blog that made it to the HN homepage. Somehow it are almost always Wordpress
blogs that go down.

If I really did bet for $10 that it's wordpress every time a site goes down on
the HN homepage, I could simply quit my job. Perhaps I should ask $10 to
optimize Wordpress websites (aka install a caching plugin and done), hmm...

------
kungfuton
I found Rejection Therapy to be an excellent way to recalibrate the way I
think and get out of my comfortable stupor: <http://rejectiontherapy.com>

The new year is coming up. Might be time for the Rejection Therapy 30 Day
Challenge again.

