

Want to be happy? Stop trying to be perfect. - spif
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/11/01/give.up.perfection/index.html?hpt=C2

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wccrawford
I absolutely disagree. I had given up on 'being perfect' for a while and
decided to just live. Everything in my life was a mess, especially my
apartment. Worst of all, my code quality could have used some serious
improvement, but I'd given up striving to be the best I could be, so I didn't
bother to find ways to improve, I just did the same old thing over and over.

And then the company hired a programmer that was fanatical about code quality.
It didn't take long to start learning better techniques from him and I started
applying it to the rest of my life as well. I now have a new job, new
apartment, and I'm constantly improving myself.

Was I unhappy before? Not really.. But I wasn't -happy-. I was just existing.
Now, I enjoy improving things in my life every day. Looking at the difference
from day to day and month to month, I get a feeling of accomplishment. I'm
proud of the things I have and do, instead of merely existing.

So no, 'stop trying to be perfect' is not good advice to help someone be
happy. Instead, convince them to actually work to make their life better, and
fix the things they -can- fix, instead of worrying about the things they
can't.

I'm not a religious person, but this is one of the best quotes for self-
improvement I've ever heard:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage
to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." - Reinhold
Niebuhr

Whether you are religious or not, you don't need God to give you those things.
You can get there on your own if you try.

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mark_l_watson
"Living in a society that floods us with unattainable expectations around
every topic imaginable..."

Using advertising to _program_ people to feel like they need material things
(flashy car, big home, huge yard, latest gadget) to be happier has been a
grandmaster move on the part of the elite to control average people in a very
long running economic strategy. One of my nieces and her husband are the
perfect example: they have a fairly high standard of living but if anyone they
know gets something that they don't have, they try to immediately get the same
thing. They have been _programmed_ in a very real sense.

