
If you’re unsure whether to quit your job or break up, you probably should - robertwiblin
https://80000hours.org/2018/08/randomised-experiment-if-youre-really-unsure-whether-to-quit-your-job-or-break-up-you-really-probably-should/
======
kpwagner
Haha. I quit my job once. July 2009, working in finance. My next job was two
years later, scooping grain at a grain elevator.

You know how to tell when the economy is in the last 25% of an economic
expansion? When everywhere you turn is another white collar professional under
the age of 30 in the middle of an existential crisis. Brace for impact,
because we're all about to punched in the fucking mouth. And some of us are
going to be like, "What? I thought things were just supposed to keep getting
better every year. We've had one breakfast yes, but what about second
breakfast? Elevenses? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper?"

Best as I can tell, the data for this article was collected via
freanomicsexperiments.com over the course of a year. But I didn't see what
year the experiment was conducted. And I'll bet you all my bitcoin the
experiment data was not collected during any year from 2008-2012. Job markets,
like credit markets, are very elastic. It's easy to find a replacement job
right now, and it's also easy to qualify for a home loan.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
There's no reason you can't find the new job before ditching the existing one.

~~~
abainbridge
The additional wisdom of this approach is that the interview processes you go
though are enough to teach you that all the other jobs are crap too and
leaving the current one is pointless.

~~~
humanrebar
Also, you can find that all the other crap jobs pay 10-20% better, giving you
information and leverage to get a better salary, better benefits, more time
off, etc.

------
hashrate
Really surprise with all comments here.

Quitting your job if you have kids a wife and a mortgage is a much more
complicated topic than just saying "F __* this I 'm going to raise cows in the
Montana"

It's complicated to move internally in a corporation , so thinking as to
moving to another company to another position when you have responsibilities
it's pretty much like playing the Russian roulette with your finance and your
situation.

~~~
scarface74
_It 's complicated to move internally in a corporation , so thinking as to
moving to another company to another position when you have responsibilities
it's pretty much like playing the Russian roulette with your finance and your
situation._

How is changing jobs like Russian Roulette? Since both salary compression and
inversion are real phenomena, the statistically best way to provide better for
your family is changing jobs.

From personal experience, and not living in Silicon Valley, I changed jobs 3
times in the last 4 years and made $45K more. I changed jobs 5 timed in the
last 10 years and made $65K more. Before that, I stayed at one job 9 years and
only made $7K more in year 9 than year 2 with measly 3% raises and bonuses
being cut.

~~~
pnutjam
You absolutely have to change jobs to get raises, but I can certainly see the
Russian Roulette comparison. Especially as you get near the top of your salary
range. The biggest problem I see is how different benefits can be and cost
from company to company. From the simple (like comparing payroll deductions),
to the complex; time spent in office, time spent working, commute time,
coworkers, quality of health coverage, quality of work, vacation accrual.

I generally try to stay at a job for 3 to 4 years, but my last job at HP, cut
my knees off when the spun me over to DXC and our benefits costs tripled. To
keep the same benefits would have amounted to a 10% pay cut. I probably would
not have taken the job if it's benefits had been as offered post merger, so I
had no qualms in quitting as soon as I could line something else up.

~~~
scarface74
_I can certainly see the Russian Roulette comparison. Especially as you get
near the top of your salary range._

I can see this causing me an existential crisis in three years. Using my usual
framework of basing jobs on technology, environment, and money, will I be able
to move from an environment I like where I make “enough” to jump ship to stay
on the technology train? Especially when we are at a point where more money
won’t have any effect on our current lifestyle by much or will I get
complacent? The next stage of my career to make any appreciable salary jump is
going to require me to go into management (not happening) or work for a
consulting company that will definitely be more stressful and more traveling.

 _The biggest problem I see is how different benefits can be and cost from
company to company. From the simple (like comparing payroll deductions),_

Yes that is simple. Because of the ACA, you can basically be guaranteed a
minimum quality of coverage. Yes the cost can be more or less, but that’s just
a number when you are comparing total comp.

In our case, there is a known upper bound in health care cost. If it’s too
expensive on my job, we switch to my wife’s coverage - she works for the
state.

 _to the complex; time spent in office, time spent working, commute time,
coworkers, quality of health coverage, quality of work, vacation accrual._

Commute time is known up front, not really a risk. Adjust your required
compensation accordingly. You can also gauge the type of technology they use
up front.

~~~
pnutjam
My point is not that you can't measure these things, but that they are
complicated to measure when comparing offers from multiple places. And the ACA
guarantees coverage, but there is still a huge difference between a copay
style plan and a high deductible plan. Especially when it comes to family
coverage. The amount each company subsidises for family coverage is all over
the place. I've been on plans where it's $20 to see a doctor or $90, right now
I pay everything out of pocket until I hit $6k.

------
lordnacho
You should, and the reason is this.

When you're evaluating a decision, you have partial information about the
extremes. If you've been with someone for a year, you know how bad your worst
fight was. Chances are though, whatever it was is a sampling from a
distribution that you've only sampled a small amount of.

Your eventual worst fight will be worse, because when you have more samples
chances are the extremes will be more extreme. (BTW if you're evaluating
algorithmic trading strategies you need to think about this.)

If you're already thinking things are bad enough to consider leaving, you can
look forward to them getting worse even if the underlying dynamics are no
different.

Note the asymmetry and the importance of the extremes. Everyone who has a
breakup story also had good moments and may have mostly enjoyed their average
day. But you choose to leave because of the lows, not the average or the
highs.

~~~
toxik
This analysis seems much too statistical and superficial. If your partner and
you are fighting more than you think is manageable, you need to make a change.
That is your prerogative. You can treat them differently, you can try to find
out when and why you get into fights, you can change jobs, you can change
partner. All of these choices will have an enormous impact on your quality of
life, and the dynamics between you.

Your outlook makes it sound like you have as little effect over your own
relationship as you do over the stock market.

~~~
scarface74
There are some red flags that you can tell pretty early on in a relationship
if you pay attention.

\- How do you argue? Is your partner denigrating? That’s a personality trait
and an immediate no.

\- Do they have an addiction? If you are married, you can try to work through
it if they want to get better, but statistically it’s a long shot. But if you
are just dating, why bother?

\- Are they materialistic? Are they just in the relationship for what you can
do for them?

\- Are they honest?

Etc.

~~~
toxik
Insofar as there are litmus test type questions for people, I try to avoid
them. But one that always stuck with me is: look at how they treat servers,
waiters, cleaners, etc; and; look at how they treat their closest family
members. It will tell you something about how they feel about other people in
general, and about how well they develop long-term relationships.

Granted, even this information gets tainted: narcissist parents, for example,
might come across as their parents being nice, but them not being nice to
their parents.

~~~
rainbowmverse
>> _" Granted, even this information gets tainted: narcissist parents, for
example, might come across as their parents being nice, but them not being
nice to their parents."_

You can tell a lot about someone by how they treat someone they don't like.
Some people get downright cruel with people they don't like, and it's a huge
red flag because some day they may find reason to not like you. You're just
setting yourself up to become a target once you find yourself on their bad
side.

You sometimes see this when someone's hating on a public figure. They insult
the person's weight, appearance, and speculate about their sexuality. I am
never surprised when these people turn out to be abusers and harassers.

~~~
scarface74
_Some people get downright cruel with people they don 't like, and it's a huge
red flag because some day they may find reason to not like you._

Trust me, if you stay married long enough, there are going to be times that
you don’t like yout spouse and vice versa. That’s when you really see what you
are both made of. Over time the rebound either gets faster as you learn how to
disagree civilly - or worse.

~~~
toxik
Very interesting, and something that I talk to my partner about at times. My
method of managing emotions is to try to cool off before engaging in a new
discussion, if not for diplomacy then for my own sake -- it is so tiring to be
angry!

I think this is also why words of affirmation and acknowledgement are so
important, like taking the five seconds it takes to say you appreciate your
partner, and thank you for clearing the table after dinner yesterday.

------
quickthrower2
This is biased because the coin being heads only made people 11% more likely
to do so, so most of the factor in whether they made the leap was whether they
were going to anyway. The causality may not be the change => :-), but instead
change+ready+motivated => :-)

The title might be better as "If you’re _pretty sure_ whether to quit your job
or break up, you probably should"

~~~
noobermin
But if you're pretty sure, then...you don't need a coin to make a decision, do
you? If you already know, then it doesn't really require an article does it?

~~~
monadgonad
Nah, these decisions can be extremely difficult to go through with. Even if
you’re pretty sure, and can lists loads of benefits to making the decision,
there’s still a “what if it all goes wrong?” holding you back.

~~~
noobermin
Then that sounds like the "unsure" category, not the "sure" category.

~~~
coldtea
Being sure and being ready to make it are two different things.

People can be deeply sure, and even be able to articulate very well, that X is
very bad for them (job, relationship, habit, etc) but still not be able to
quit it.

~~~
noobermin
May be I am playing with definitions, so I apologize if you think so although
I think I have reasons for my thinking. Here's my logic: may be someone hates
x, but not doing x has adverse consquences, so they don't stop x. That, to me,
sounds like a decision, that isn't "unsure", that's doing x even though you
hate it because you don't want to lose out on y,z,\omega. The thing is that
still is a decision to me.

In a similar sense, doing x for a period of time until you can quit and never
do it again is also a decision, and it has its own circumstance, but it is
also a sure decision.

What I read what they said, is I don't like x, but I have reasons y,z,\omega,
so should I stop x? That is what I call "unsure", even if you don't like x.
The reason I think so, is because you're still open to keeping x, even though
you hate x, and you have the ability to say no to x. Then, why say no to x,
and lose y,z,\omega anyway? Which is worse? x or not y,z,\omega?

I guess the reason is especially in Western culture, we put way too much stock
in internal motivations, and all of psychology and history teaches us that
internal motivations often end up being BS, fancy stories we tell ourselves
anyway. Often times, material context matters a lot more than internal
reasons. It's not moods don't matter at all, and I'm not saying we're just
machines, but people seem to seriously discount one's context these days.

------
ewjordan
The big difference between leaving a relationship and leaving a job is that
even if you're in a good place, a job will never last for life. Some
relationships will.

Anecdotally, I don't know a single person that has regretted leaving a job
when they decided to (disclaimer: most people I know work skilled jobs). Even
when people come back to the same company, it's usually on a different team
and with a 30% bump in salary. So I generally agree, once you're thinking
about it, it's probably time to go, you'll only end up better off.

Relationships are a lot more nuanced, hence the lesser benefit the article
reports versus leaving jobs. I'd want to see it broken down by relationship
length, age, happiness level and other factors before making any serious
decisions based on this article.

~~~
__s
My mother & father have both held the same job for the past 20 years, & intend
to retire from those jobs. Secretary at a lawfirm & furniture repair. They're
both now enjoying 5 weeks vacation a year. & hey, they've also maintained a
great relationship for three decades too

~~~
XorNot
And they're probably legacy employees in both those positions - it's extremely
unlikely anyone new entering is going to get the same terms or stability.

------
yontherubicon
Is it just me or is this _terrible_ advice?

~~~
dev_dull
This advice really resonates with the mellenial in me. The adult in me —
however — finds it pretty selfish.

~~~
afarrell
Aren't all Millennials over 18 at this point?

~~~
spacehome
18-year-olds have legal majority, but talk to one for an hour and you'll see
most are not 'adult'. 500 years ago a 16 year old could be a man, contributing
as a full fledged adult to his community. Today it's 25 if you're lucky.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
From what I understand this isn’t actually true to much extent; 16 was still
considered fairly young. Too young to run a household or be the head of the
house, often times, although if it happens it would be a forced of
circumstance. When Henry of the six wives married a 17 year old (by some
estimates) people were disgusted/concerned about it.

~~~
spacehome
Depends on where.

------
cjbprime
I wonder if there's a potential rationalizing effect -- unmentioned here as
far as I can tell -- whereby people are simply unwilling to admit to having
made a bad life decision, and are willing to lie about how happy they are
after the life change to avoid this.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Or just that quitting your job/ending a relationship can both be extremely
stressful in the short term, and people fear going through that harsh period
even if they hope to be better off after.

------
csomar
So the recap of this is: Break up, Quit your job, Move to another country,
Start a business, Don't propose, Don't have kids.

Seems to me like almost of the opposite of what everyone around the world is
doing.

~~~
lx3459683
If you want an average outcome, follow the average path. Having kids or
getting married or staying in the same place all their life does not make
people any happier. God knows I've seen plenty of people who were bitter about
any combination of those choices.

If you want to actually live your life as a conscious being, stop looking at
what other people are doing and decide what you want. It's scary and it's not
for everyone.

~~~
seventhtiger
Everyone has a natural level of happiness that is extremely difficult to
change permanently. The fact is some people just have an unhappier baseline
than the rest, or a happier baseline. Circumstance will move you around your
neutral happiness but over time you will always tend to go to that level. It's
called the hedonistic treadmill.

The things that do affect your happiness in a big measureable way are whether
or not you're poor. Being rich doesn't make you happier, but being poor
absolutely makes you unhappier, so does being unhealthy and being lonely.

If you're not poor, healthy, and have human companionship there doesn't exist
any external goal that will actually make you happier long term. So take what
simple pleasures you get, enjoy accomplishing any goals you want, but never
think some different career or object or hobby will make you happier. It
won't.

~~~
spacehome
> Everyone has a natural level of happiness that is extremely difficult to
> change permanently.

I see this is true in today's world, but I don't think there's any evidence
that this is a permanent state of affairs. I have a hope that there is a
recipe for a permanent human elevation of mood that we just haven't unlocked
yet.

~~~
whamlastxmas
You can use a lot of drugs. It drastically lowers how long you feel
permanently happy (because you'll die quickly) but it's definitely a real fix.

~~~
spacehome
Yea, but I'm thinking of something that increases the integral of happiness
over lifetime. Your solution doesn't quite get there.

------
rdl
Much better put by whoever did the “fuck yes or no” blog post of a few years
ago, IMO. (Mark Manson?)

This should be how you treat new things. OTOH, while economists say “sunk
costs are sunk” and should thus be disregarded, in real life switching has
often-underestimated costs (including reputation) so skipping out on things at
the first sign of trouble is usually bad.

~~~
grecht
I like that blog post, it resonated with me and generally feels like sound
life advice.

But the problem I have with it is that this is essentially the life advice
you'd get from a good friend after the 3rd beer in the pub, yet it's on Mark's
website where he presents it as _dating advice_ in a way that makes it sound
like it's the truth and everybody should do it. I would've wished for at least
one sentence where he declares "Fuck Yes or No" his own thought experiment or
approach to dating.

But I guess more cautious and less self confident writing doesn't make as much
money.

~~~
rdl
I think what I originally read was someone else’s post or tweet or something
inspired by this specifically in the context of cofounders.

It is pretty widely held advice in investing, at least.

------
spacehome
Did I read this correctly that proposing caused an insanely strong 5 point
_reduction_ in happiness? And that having a kid was also quite negative?

It sounds like the takeaway is that if you're on the fence about any of these
issues, you should quit your job, break up with your romantic parter, don't
have kids, don't get engaged, and start your own business?

To me, it looks like the common thread through all of these is that happiness
goes hand in hand with independence and freedom.

~~~
UncleEntity
> It sounds like the takeaway is that if you're on the fence about any of
> these issues, you should quit your job, break up with your romantic parter,
> don't have kids, don't get engaged, and start your own business?

Exactly how my life turned out and no one looks to me as a shining example of
how one should achieve happiness in life...though I do have independence and
freedom in droves.

~~~
spacehome
Do you think you would have been any happier with your old job, kids, and
spouse? Presumably if you made the choice to give those up you thought it was
a good idea at the time. Did you change your mind about that?

------
gk1
Another way to put it:

A "so-so" job (or relationship) is _worse_ than a terrible job, because a
terrible job at least motivates you to look for something better.

Whenever I ended a so-so job, project, or relationship, the result was always
"I should have done that sooner," not "I shouldn't have done that."

------
dochtman
This header is just missing the "if you're making more than 50000 a year"
condition.

------
stewbrew
"2 to 6 months"

It would be interesting to know how this turns out on the long run.

I also think that in real life, these decisions are not always about you
alone.

~~~
noobermin
During my graduate career, I got close to quitting a life of hard lonely work
and moving to SV to join the grind over there. Sounds like the thing they
advocate right? Well I didn't, and now I can put PhD next to my name, I make a
comfortable salary, and am the happiest I've ever been.

In my early twenties, frustratingly surrounded by many hot girls, especially
ones who showed interest in me, I considered breaking up with my girlfriend
(whom which I was in a long distance relationship, which added pressure) at
the time to experience more. I mean, I won't be 24 forever. Love is great, but
experience is a part of life too, right?

Well, I stuck with her. I've traveled around the world with her and we're
eventually planning for marriage once I can permanently move to be with her. I
am the happiest I've ever been.

BTW, finding out that staying in both cases would end up being the right
decision took a while, it's really on looking back years later that I realize
which decisions were right or wrong.

One of the things I think I can actually attribute to wisdom that can come
with age is this idea: you know only in the short term what you want, what you
like to eat, what kind of hobbies you like, etc., but you don't really know
what you fundamentally or deeply want in terms of career, lifestyle, etc. You
really don't, so second guessing yourself isn't something like "falling short"
because the default should be super sure of what you want. It just means
you're not sure.

~~~
barrkel
You don't know the counterfactual. You're making conclusions based on only
having one branch of history. The interesting thing about studies in the
article is they give us a probabilistic view of the counterfactual.

Maybe you would have been even happier on the other path. Who knows?

(I find it interesting that proposal is worth over -5 happiness points after
six months, in the table in the article.)

~~~
noobermin
The entire point of my post was 6 months is too short of a time to make a
determination of whether x was a good idea or not. Do many people marry within
6 months of proposing? Perhaps a good chunk were in the stressful period of
planning and logistics I guess.

And you're right, I don't know the counterfactual. Also, I don't know if I'm
deluding myself or not. The thing is, I don't care because I'm happy now
compared to back then.

------
sidhuko
"Job quitting and breaking up both carry very large, positive, and
statistically significant coefficients at six months. Going on a diet is
positive and statistically significant at two months, but has a small and
insignificant impact by six months. "

Guy breaks up with girl Goes gym (2 months) Guy finds girl (6 months)

I'm sure we have these chemicals which effect emotion to be overtly
opportunistic about life around periods with new sexual partners to encourage
reproduction. But I'm just an alien

------
Confusion
Everyone wonders whether to quit or break up sometimes. That of course doesn't
mean you should do so. The title is miseading. The first line of second
paragraph states that data was collected on people that were 'deeply unsure'
about something. Quite a lot depends on how much you are actually considering
it. Unless you are sure the data in the study is representative for your
situation, this study doesn't help much.

------
rthille
Pretty sure I should do both.

~~~
ivanech
if you're serious, you might want to delete this. i think it's relatively easy
to tie this account to others

~~~
PhasmaFelis
If either their employer or their SO are sleuthing their private accounts
looking for dirt, that only makes it clearer that they need to leave.

------
speedplane
No one is sure of anything, this is a pretty obtuse and ridiculous
recommendation.

A better recommendation, would be: trust your "instinct" and act on it with
purpose.

~~~
afarrell
An even better (or possibly the same, I'm just restating you more verbosely)
recommendation would be one which gave you a mental framework to help you
organize your thoughts around the situation so that you can be confident in
exercising your own judgment.

Books which are good for helping lay out such a mental framework include:

\- [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decisive-How-Make-Better-
Decisions/...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decisive-How-Make-Better-
Decisions/dp/1847940862)

\- [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Too-Good-Leave-Bad-
Stay/dp/07181417...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Too-Good-Leave-Bad-
Stay/dp/0718141776)

------
jl2718
Average benefit is meaningless. Individual decisions are made by minimax,
which says to stay.

~~~
toxik
So you try to minimize your partner's advantage‽ Sort of a worrying strategy
there. :-)

~~~
jl2718
No. Maximize worst-case scenario. Which is either stay in bad job or have no
job.

------
scottlocklin
"Both are significant at the p=0.04 level, and fortunately I don’t think
Levitt had many if any opportunities for specification mining here to
artificially drive down the p value."

You guys will fall for anything, won't you?

------
projektir
Hmm. This seems like one of those things that may be statistically true, but
the statistic may not be relevant to a given situation. I think there's a term
for stuff like this but I forgot it, regression to the mean, maybe?

------
revskill
If you're in an unhappy position at your job or life, you can ruin your
relationships naturally, or you can use those relationships to save you. So,
leave the job or not, it's based on your relationship also.

------
partycoder
Save enough money so you can leave your job if you need to. Connect with
people that can refer you if you are looking for a job.

------
ianai
.48 higher on the happiness scale 0-10 probably isn’t worth it.

~~~
mjevans
Bold quote from about 50% down the page:

 __ _" The causal effect of quitting a job is estimated to be a gain of 5.2
happiness points out of 10, and breaking up as a gain of 2.7 out of 10!"_ __

I believe that 's on a scale of 1 to 10 (or 0 to 10?) someone rated going from
a 3 to an 8 (on average) based on quitting a job they were /considering/
quitting. I will note that they probably did have other opportunities lined
up; quitting a job and becoming unemployed without benefits strikes me as a
most probably unhappy circumstance.

Similarly the relation change ended up netting 2-3 "points" of difference for
a relationship. So 5 became 7 or 8.

Edit (not for formatting):

I didn't check the details on the statistics, so I don't know how LIKELY a
positive outcome vs negative outcome was from those changes. It's possible
that there's a split where a subset was VERY happy with the change and some
were ambivalent/unhappy as a result.

------
Tloewald
My favorite result was “should I propose?” -5!

------
wimgz
Hell yes, or no

------
RickJWagner
why is there a photo of Barack Obama on this article?

I really don't see the connection. Anybody please enlighten me?

------
modells
Better have a solid alternative in-place before throwing away social or income
sheet capital. Up and quitting (hopefully with notice) without a plan isn't
smart or professional.

~~~
Black-Plaid
> Up and quitting (hopefully with notice)

Why is it considered bad form to quit without notice, but if a company lets
you go without notice, it's "just business"?

~~~
mnm1
Because we are taught that way by company propaganda. It really isn't a big
deal and often, leaving without notice is the right thing to do. Companies in
the US have no respect or care for their employees, yet they push this idea
that we must respect and care for them. Fuck them if their usefulness has come
to an end. Not to mention that often, when you do give notice, they'll fire
you simply to avoid paying you the final two weeks. We need to stop buying
into this stupid bullshit corporate propaganda and eradicate it out of our
culture to make progress.

~~~
jstarfish
I agree with you, but--

> Not to mention that often, when you do give notice, they'll fire you simply
> to avoid paying you the final two weeks

This makes no sense. Companies will make your life hell and do anything to get
you to quit so they don't have to fire you. If they fire you without cause,
you can make an unemployment claim against them-- but if you quit on your own,
that's on you.

In my experience, it's more common that they'll enact your resignation
immediately yet _continue_ paying you as though you were working the next two
weeks, to mitigate any final acts of sabotage or exfiltration.

~~~
maxsilver
> In my experience, it's more common that they'll enact your resignation
> immediately yet continue paying you

In my experience, it's not uncommon that they'll enact your resignation
immediately, and that's it. No wages, no pay, you resigned, so goodbye.

> This makes no sense. (snip) If they fire you without cause, you can make an
> unemployment claim against them

Companies are not necessarily rational actors, they are wholly controlled by
people who can sometimes be just as rash or impulsive as any other person.
Especially at smaller companies, pure spite can have a non-trivial amount of
play in the hiring/firing/resigning process.

And what is the employee really going to do, file for unemployment? The
employee already has a new job (that's why they resigned in the first place),
so it's a pretty safe gamble they aren't going though that hassle, just for
the two week gap.

\---

If the company falls on hard times and lays people off, that's "just business"
and "no hard feelings". But if an employee leaves for a different job, that's
a minor _betrayal_ , and gets treated as such. This response is not
appropriate, but I've seen it often enough to know it happens.

------
gammateam
HN news today: break up and get rich, you'll be happy

you guys okay?

~~~
stephengillie
> _If you 're unsure whether to quit your job or break up, you probably
> should._

Which one? Both?

~~~
gammateam
there is also a news article trending here about money improving quality of
life for people, from nytimes

------
singularity2001
That's horrible advice for relationships.

Once you sleep with her, marry her. Sorry for being conservative here.

~~~
phyller
Actual conservative sentiment would be, once you marry her, sleep with her.
Worked for me!

Here's my reasoning. If you are expecting someone else to make you happy,
you're in for disappointment. It's just human nature, one or both of you is
going to disappoint the other. My apparently contrarian take on relationships
is when you are ready to become selfless and start concerning yourself with
making other people happy instead of yourself a) congratulations, you are now
an adult human b) you can find someone that you can decide is worth the
effort, and then stick to it.

And you may be surprised to find that selflessness and happiness are highly
correlated. That's also human nature, IMO how we are hardwired to live as
social beings. There's some great ancient literature on the subject, and I
don't think it is a principle which changes much over time and culture.

~~~
singularity2001
I honestly wished I had read your very good advice a bit earlier in live. If I
had to condense "What's wrong with society" into one sentence it would be that
people have mostly forgotten your way of reasoning.

