
How to Be Happy - adamzerner
http://lesswrong.com/lw/4su/how_to_be_happy/
======
jeffreyrogers
At the time in my life when I stopped reading LessWrong I became remarkably
happier within a week. I attribute this to two reasons: 1. LessWrong's focus
on optimizing your life is so great that whenever I failed at something or
didn't uphold something I said I would do I felt bad about it. 2. One thing
that makes me happy (and I think most others would agree they're happiest when
this occurs as well) is accomplishment. I like the feeling of working on a
goal and having that lead to tangible results, whether that means something
I've created or something like lifting more weight in the gym.

By actually making a change to how I act and seeing the results of that change
in the world I developed a lot of confidence (I was formerly very shy and
uncomfortable with myself despite having a lot of things going for me).

I want to come back to the first point briefly as well. At the time I was
reading LW it often felt like I was being productive. I'd think to myself "oh
I just need to read this article on motivation and acrasia (the LW term for
procrastination), and I'll never fail to do what I planned to do again. This
caused me to spend my time _preparing_ to do things that I never ended up
doing, and it also set me up to feel angry with myself when I _inevitably_
failed.

One thing that helped me a lot was accepting that on top of everything we
humans have going for us we're really just animals, and we get upset, or
jealous, or sad, or angry, just like any other animal. So rather than try to
eliminate these negative emotions from my life I came to accept them as normal
and try to structure my life so that they occur as infrequently as possible.
I've found a few ways of doing this that work for me, and I can post some of
what's worked if anyone's interested. I still have bad days or bad moments,
but when I do I accept it as normal and try to see what I can learn from it to
lessen the impact next time, rather than trying to over-optimize the life of
an unpredictable, fallible human making most of the important decisions in his
life based on emotion (hint: that's all of us).

The allure of LW is that we're perfectly rational or that we can at least make
ourselves that we through sheer force of will. For better or for worse (I
think for better) that's not the case.

~~~
bitexploder
I think another key factor with a lot of modern unhappiness is that, as the
article notes, money does not correlate to happiness as long as you are above
the poverty line.

We have lost the art of teaching people how to have a philosophy of life. We
teach people how to have a craft. We teach basic morals. In religious
households you may even be taught a pretty comprehensive "life philosophy",
but it is often underpinned by many practices that defy rationality, and I
think, lead many to unhappiness.

A few years ago I stumbled on some pretty interesting reading about Stoicism
and I have since read much of ancient greek philosophy and a bit of more
modern stuff like Kant. It still sort of blows my mind just how insightful the
ancient greek philosophers were about human nature. One of the key principles
of Stoicism that has an analogue or similar set of features in many other
philosophies is that it is essentially not things that happen to us that cause
us pain/grief/sadness/unhappiness but our judgement and reaction to those
things. It seems a little trite in a short post like this, and I can't sum up
something as complex as an entire school of philosophical thought, but it has
worked well for me.

I have been in conversations where life philosophies like Stoicism and other
related ancient greek philosophies get dismissed out of hand. Only to have a
conversation wind over our current empirical approach to happiness. This less
wrong article is /exactly/ what I call this empirical approach to happiness.
Study all of the correlates, take all the best modern science about which
behaviors yield the most happiness and which yield the least happiness and
optimize accordingly.

Yet, 1800+ years ago, ancient philosophers identified many of the same
principles articles like this are encouraging us to apply to our lives. What
is missing from this article, and I think that can often cause many people to
fail at sticking with a plan, is a coherent and binding strategy for all of
this disparate "strategies for happiness". The ancient philosophies are not
perfect, us moderns have learned a thing or two since Socrates and Epictetus,
but their insights on the human condition are too keen to ignore. We know a
lot more about genetics, and I have witnessed the ravages of deep nearly
incurable depression on my family. Even the ancient stoics knew of depression
and how it could destroy rationality of the most adept philosophers. Outside
of these parameters, I would argue, strongly, that we could all live with a
little more Socrates and Epictetus in our life and a little less religious
extremism and modern consumerism.

And this brings me to my main point, without a rational, modern, and
scientifically palatable life philosophy for how to think and feel about
/everything/ it is very easy to put yourself into negative emotional states. I
have found with a system to judge and evaluate emotions, and a keen
understanding of the basic tendencies of my nature, I don't need a lot of
empirical scientific knowledge to stay happy, though it does inform my
approach.

When I read your post it made me think of myself and my old strategy of
decreasing pain/bad moments and increasing good moments where good feelings
are more likely. Now, I proceed in a manner as I see fit and I simply accept
that much of my feelings are up to me and that jealously, sadness, and anger
are just my judgement or feelings about something. I have also, often found,
that when properly analyzed, I am not truly sad about a situation, merely that
my judgements were wrong. I have definitely embraced many stoic principles
into my life, and when I continue to work at maintaining and improving my
understanding and ability to apply the principles I have adopted, I stay very
even keeled, neither greatly happy or greatly sad. Content. I try to stick
close to my baseline and take joy in every day life (since most of life is
every day life) :)

~~~
yellow_and_gray
Thank you for writing this. Can you say more about the system you found, this
binding strategy for "strategies for happiness"?

My judgements being wrong used to be a source of frustration for me too. Now I
take them as a given. Being wrong is part of the process.

The biggest problem I have now is forgetting what strategy I had decided to
follow. Mostly because there are too many things to decice. The process of me
deciding doesn't ingrain each decision in me hard enough.

How do you deal with that?

~~~
bitexploder
Here is the thing. Stoicism as it was taught 2000 years ago was extremely
bound up in its "providential" and deity focus. Not as unpalatable as some of
the more direct monotheistic religions, but depending on your teacher stoicism
was still on a scale of pantheism to direct theism. (Marcus was very
pantheistic and deemphasized religion, Epictetus was much more vocal about the
theistic elements). As a modern reader a lot of ancient philosophy is like
that. It has elements that you have to excise. So ancient philosophies are not
really plug in play for a modern rationalist.

Basically, I think you have to start by writing things down and learning about
the elements of these ancient, and modern, philosophies to see the sort of
systems they put in place to deal with every day life events and exceptional
events. How should I think about X? And some very obvious patterns will
emerge. Some elements of stoicism may be difficult to employ and Stoicism in
general is a hard to follow (fully) philosophy. The key point Epictetus had
was that very few of us have the ability to follow Stoicism (or any coherent,
but challenging) philosophy to its fullest. However, we should still endeavor
down this path of "progress". This is why Epictetus has stayed so popular. He
didn't advocate perfection of philosophy, merely that you work at it.

Which brings me to my final thought for you to answer your question directly:
write it all down. For example, Stoicism has a lot of great elements that
resemble modern psychology CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). So you pull the
elements of ancient philosophies that work, you augment it with snippets like
this Less Wrong articles various things. And you write your own coherent
philosophy of life. And then you work at following it. It is pretty easy to
lay down ideals, and pretty hard to stick to them. So you have to work at it,
almost every day. You have to work on mindfulness and staying present and
ensuring you keep your philosophy in mind in every day situations and
exceptional situations. And, and this is where it gets tricky if you have
trouble with non-empirical elements, you just have to believe your philosophy
works. You have to believe it enough to follow it, even if you can't explain
all of it. Science has spent the last 2000+ years catching up to things the
ancient greeks found to work.

Much like a running coach can't really tell you WHY, exactly, everything he is
having you do is working, it just does. Physiology has slowly been providing
more and more detail, in the mean time running coaches have learned through
trial and error how to train very efficiently. Some day we will probably have
an exact explanation for the mechanisms of physiological improvement. Until
then we can use our very good heuristics. I would argue it is the same from
psychological perspective. It is close enough. Trust in your system and
intuition and work to make it better and progress as a human being. There is
no "perfect system" for everyone, but I think we could all agree on some
pretty broad ideals that count as forward progress as humans :)

------
pkorzeniewski
I've read many articles and books on this subject and not a single one of them
had any effect on my life. It's usually just a list of things that - according
to the author (and every author of course has different opinion) - will make
you happy. It's bullshit, there is no "golden solution" for everyone. Reading
such articles will make you even more unhappy, because now you've the whole
list of things and you feel like if you don't achieve them all, you'll be
unhappy for the rest of your life.

~~~
jasode
Maybe the closest writing to fit your view is Daniel Gilbert[1]. Basically,
humans have a biological "set point" for happiness and it's different for
everyone. It is not affected by winning the lottery, or getting paralyzed from
a car accident, or doing meta-analysis on what happiness is (such as reading
self-help books about achieving happiness.) Those events may affect happiness
in the short term but not in the long term. People will eventually gravitate
back to their predisposed set point of happiness.

If I agree with the above, I can set aside the quest for ultimate measurement
of _absolute_ happiness (e.g. Solon's " _Count no man happy until he be dead._
"[2]) . However, I can still do things that affect _relative_ happiness. When
I stopped consulting for boring ERP software, my quality-of-life definitely
improved. Again, I won't know if I'm ultimately "happy" until I'm lying on my
deathbed. Nevertheless, it feels like I got a little victory from changes like
that.

[1][http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-
Gilbert/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-
Gilbert/dp/1400077427)

[http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy](http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy)

[2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon)

~~~
pkorzeniewski
I agree you can do things that affect your relative happiness, but the key
here is that it's YOU who must know what the things are - everyone have
different needs and you can't fit all in one model. Some prefer to have
interesting, but lower paying job, some doesn't care as long as it pays for
their hobbies - and both can be happy, but switch their lives and both will be
miserable. So if one would give advice to the other on how to be happy, it
wouldn't help a bit, because they've different perspective on life.

------
dominotw
Can someone tell me how this 'cult of happiness' started in western culture.
The obsession with happiness is so pervasive and absurd that people are
depressed because they are not happy 24x7 not because of a personal tragedy.
Why is some vaguely defined happiness sold as some holy grail that must be
achieved at all costs.

There are billion dollar industries built around selling happiness ( fashion
industry, fitness industry, education industry and a million others), and yet,
and yet most of happiness we are sold is a distant dream for the most of us.
Why? . Why do we live in a constant conflict both within ourselves and
conflict with the outer world. Do you want to live your life in this constant
conflict ?

Most happiness peddling misses the important intricate relationship between
happiness and pain/anxiety how they are the same feeling and pursuing one
means pursuing the other. And yet most people are fooled into believing that
we can somehow chase happiness while avoiding pain/anxiety. Even people who
are very logical in every other parts of life buy into this absurdity.

Does this have to do anything with rise of western industrial power when
marketing changed from 'buy this because you need it' to 'buy this because it
will make you happy' [1]

1\. [http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-
self/](http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/)

~~~
onetimeusename
In the article, the writer mentioned he is rarely unhappy for more than 20
minutes. I don't understand this. Happiness is a result of something that is
good and sadness is a result of something being bad. Emotions have a purpose.
Emotions are not some sort of primitive remnant from prehistoric times we need
to overcome. It's as if because of science we can now see what is good and
what is bad and remove the bad emotions like they had no reason or purpose.

~~~
sliverstorm
Emotions have a purpose, but that doesn't mean you need to wallow in your
unhappiness.

------
noname123
I'm happiest when I'm seeking out and feeding off all sorts of misery,
schadenfreude of others' failures, absurdity, ennui, existential guilt,
jealousy of others' success, fear of missing of out, fear of growing old,
sexual frustration, impotence of metaphorical and of the limpy kind, the haze
and alcohol/drug induced dependency, anxiety of status.

I get angry and anxious reading my Facebook updates about weekend adventures
that I wasn't part of, LinkedIn updates about undeserving acquaintances
climbing the ladder higher than where I'm. I proceed to then practice mindful
meditation to be fully conscious of my human nature to practice the dual art
of sour grapes (e.g., "Going to law school given all of the articles I read is
not worth it nowadays") and rationalization (e.g., "They may be richer, but
I'm happier... as a maker."). Then I realize what a worthless person I'm but
self-worthless transforms into the joy of masochism.

I overeat, overdrink, stay up late, sleep in, skip out of work, act out, make
inappropriate propositions to friends or strangers when inebriated. Nursing
the bad hangover the morning after, I pat myself in the back for getting free
therapy sessions from unwilling acquaintances and for my courage to let myself
go to practice authenticity.

~~~
Centigonal
I am not a psychiatrist, but you may be suffering from some form of mental
illness. Please consider talking to a mental wellness professional about how
you feel emotions. Nobody is going to try and make you change who you are, but
almost anyone would benefit from understanding how their own mind works
better.

------
shurcooL

      8. Find your purpose and live it. One benefit of religion may be that it gives people a sense of meaning and purpose. Without a magical deity to give you purpose, though, you'll have to find out for yourself what drives you. It may take a while to find it though, and you may have to dip your hands and mind into many fields. But once you find a path that strongly motivates you and fulfills you, take it. (Of course, you might not find one purpose but many.) Having a strong sense of meaning and purpose has a wide range of positive effects.41 The 'find a purpose' recommendation also offers an illustration of how methods may differ in importance for people. 'Find a purpose' is not always emphasized in happiness literature, but for my own brain chemistry I suspect that finding motivating purposes has made more difference in my life than anything else on this list.
    

I think that's the biggest factor of my happiness. I have a long-term open
source project that I believe in and I work on it in all my spare time. Little
by little, it's getting closer to one day being very useful in many ways.

~~~
tabrischen
That's exciting, very happy for you. Can you share more about this?

~~~
shurcooL
Thanks. :)

It's an experimental software development tool, largely inspired by Bret
Victor's talks. It's similar to projects like Light Table, Zed editor, but
it's nowhere near as complete and focuses on a single programming language
(Go).

I worked on it full time for a year after finishing my master's degree,
culminating in a first place winning demo submission to the LIVE 2013 contest
[1].

By then, I ran out of money so I got a full time job and continue to work on
Conception in my limited free time. By now, I'm working on a pure Go
implementation of Conception [2], which is a lot more advanced in some ways,
but is still needs a lot more work before it's actually usable and helpful to
other people. Someday, when the time is right, I want to get back into it full
time, because it really requires a lot of work.

[1] [http://liveprogramming.github.io/liveblog/2013/04/live-
progr...](http://liveprogramming.github.io/liveblog/2013/04/live-programming-
contest-winners/)

[2] [https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception-
go/commits/master](https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception-go/commits/master)

------
davidtanner
I was a lot happier when I stopped reading LessWrong. I'm not even trying to
be (overly) snarky - I really did used to read LW and I'm very glad I stopped
as it was one of the many small things dragging down my well being.

~~~
onetimeusename
Would you care to elaborate on this? I have my own criticisms of LW and
without mentioning what they are, I want to see if other people's match up
with mine.

~~~
mseebach
I see LW as part of the cult of reason - under risk of strawmanning, it's the
idea that pretty much everything subject to perfect logical deduction from
first principles.

It's important to study and understand human biases and it can be helpful in
overcoming many struggles since most of the time, you're your own worst enemy,
but the philosophy that you're inherently flawed and you should put up a
constant effort to be "less wrong" is a recipe for disaster IMO.

Absolutely, take time every now and then to reflect on life and whether any
biases and assumptions about the world is impairing your wellbeing and
happiness and whether it might be worth changing that -- but in everyday life,
listen to your impulses, intuition and feelings. Don't be blind, don't be
stupid, but also don't constantly second-guess yourself.

I should totally write a self help book. Or at least make some inspirational
Facebook cover photos.

~~~
derefr
> but in everyday life, listen to your impulses, intuition and feelings

The idea, if I understand it correctly, is that those are the things that are
supposed to end up "less wrong." You're not supposed to be consciously
thinking all the time about how your thinking is broken; you're supposed to
practice a few tricks for a while, internalize them, and then your
impulses/intuition/feelings will _be_ (less) broken.

~~~
mseebach
I think that's right, and it's probably even pretty compatible with what I
suggest.

What I think is dangerous is adopting the underlying philosophy that your
intuition is inherently wrong and in need of salvation from reason.

In this, as with every other area of human improvement, there's a balance to
be struck between recognising your current state as "good enough" (even that
has a derogatory ring to it) while not isolating you from the fact that
there's almost always almost infinite room for improvement. And I think the
cult of reason and LW in particular is bad at recognising and respecting a
"good enough" state.

Or put another way, imagine if the most popular software engineering website
was "YoureNotAsGoodAsJohnCarmack.com".

------
awakened
"The only correct view is the absence of all views." \- thich nhat hanh

We are unhappy when we assign reasons to people's actions or words. When we
think that others say or do things because they are "out to get me". That is a
view and that is an incorrect view that will lead to all sorts of unhappiness
and discontent in your life. Get rid of all of your views. Some things just
happen. There is no grand plan.

"Do you want to be right, or happy?" \- thich nhat hanh

Don't correct people or argue with them. It leads to unhappiness. Especially
don't do this in front of others. It will only cause confrontation that hurts
you just as much as the people you are correcting. Even if you are being
wrongly accused, just be silent. There will be a better time later to correct
the situation and set the record straight. This is much needed in corporations
in America that have contentious meetings. People interrupt each other, openly
demean and correct each other. Sit silently in these meetings and stay above
it all. Everyone will notice and you'll be much happier and content.

There is much more we can learn from Eastern philosophy. When things cause
stress and unhappiness in your life, examine them, be mindful of your words
and deeds toward others, live only in the present and you'll forever be happy.

~~~
eludwig
>>"The only correct view is the absence of all views." \- thich nhat hanh

That is a pretty strong view! ;D

>>live only in the present and you'll forever be happy

Live only in the present and you will be happy, sad, angry, in love, sleepy,
hungry etc, etc. Happiness is just a thing that happens, like all things. All
things happen in the present. Can you experience a "past event" in the
present?

~~~
Double_Cast
Things I would qualify as "experiencing a 'past event' in the present" (which
breed unhappiness) include regret, remorse, PTSD, etc. E.g. emotions like
regret are always experienced in the present, but that emotion may _be about_
about past event.

------
npsimons
_Extroversion is among the best predictors of happiness,_

Well of course it is! No one ever meets the shy happy people because they
never go out!

~~~
mansr
There is also, as the author mentions, a correlation between religiosity and
happiness. Still, "start going to church" is not on the list of things to do.
I'll hazard a guess that the author is not religious and thus doesn't consider
it relevant. While I don't personally believe this a worthy pursuit, it does
show the arbitrariness of the selection.

EDIT: Point 8 does touch on religion but does not (directly) endorse it.

~~~
rquantz
This is on Less Wrong, a website devoted to rationality. You'll notice several
times in the article he is clearly addressing a rationality-focused audience.
For instance:

 _Without a magical deity to give you purpose, though, you 'll have to find
out for yourself what drives you._

He's writing for atheists. Telling an atheist "in order to be happy you need
to get religion" is like telling a recovering alcoholic "in order to fall
asleep you need to have a few drinks."

~~~
angersock
That's one of the entire problems with atheism: without a higher power to give
your life purpose, it can be very difficult to suffer through yet another day
on this earth full of such suffering and sorrow.

Nihilism has a similar issue.

It's icky.

~~~
josephlord
And it is better to worship a deity that at the very least created "this earth
full of such suffering and sorrow" if it isn't actively controlling it
depending on your view of the deity's role in the world?

As for purpose it isn't that hard to have one; it can be as simple as to
having a little happiness and trying to make the world around you just a tiny
bit better rather than worse.

There is also no reason why for most people days should be things in general
to "suffer through".

------
__Joker
I hardly agree with "Develop the skills and habits associated with
extroversion". Why I need to be comfortable with social company if my
predisposed nature and comfortableness is to be alone ?

~~~
adamzerner
Because you have a lot to gain by doing so. Humans are capable of deriving a
lot of happiness from social matters, so there's a large opportunity cost to
being alone.

That said, it obviously depends on the person's situation. I don't think the
advice is good for everyone. But it's probably good for most.

Edit: I found
[http://www.succeedsocially.com/allarticles](http://www.succeedsocially.com/allarticles)
to be really insightful and useful.

~~~
ansible
There is also quite a difference between not choosing to socialize, vs.
feeling depressed because you are not able to socialize successfully.

~~~
SonicSoul
not choosing to socialize may seem like a fine choice and not a source of
depression in itself. But I think what the parent tried to say is that there
is opportunity cost associated with such a decision. I need good amounts of
solitude each week, which makes me an introvert i guess, but if there are no
good interactions with other humans at all, my happiness dips noticeably.
Having an option to meet with another human (and having a good interaction
every so often) is a boost to the feeling of security, which I believe can
help the feeling of happiness. For example If i do something awesome (or
really dumb), I need to tell someone, and it needs to be someone that actually
cares. Or the experience is not as good / might as well not have happened.

------
frbr
"Happiness is subjective and relative"

True story: When I was a kid, I was very happy with the rattling performance
of my old Schneider PC. The sun was shining bright that day during the lunch
break on the schoolyard, when a notoriously rich kid approached me with a grin
on his face: "So you have a PC at home, huh? Want to see a real one?". A
couple hours later we walked to his mansion. I took a seat in front of his PC.
It looked new, and great. The monitor was very large. Very impressive. And
then he turned it on. "It's a Pentium!". And he went on bragging about it.
When I came back home and turned my PC on to continue working on my website, I
was more aware than ever that my PC was slow. I knew it sucked, and from that
moment on it depressed me. A couple years later I got a fast Dell. I was happy
for a while. Until I got used to it.

Morale: Sometimes, not knowing what can make you happy means you stay happy.

------
hliyan
I've reduced it to a series of equations:

    
    
      Happiness = Perceived Actual Life / Expected Life  --- (1)
    

where,

    
    
      Perceived Actual Life = Perception * Actual Life ----- (2)
    

and in most cases,

    
    
      Expected Life ∝ Perceived Life of Others ------------- (3)
    

where,

    
    
      Perceived Life of Others = Perception * Others' Actual Life -- (4)
    

and finally,

    
    
      Actual Life ∝	(1 / Happiness) * Skill * Circumstance - (5)
    
    

The most success I had was in breaking equation (3), and then in upward
adjusting _Perception_ in (2). But (5) is the kicker -- it implies that your
lack of happiness feeds back into other people's lack of happiness, creating a
loop. As long as it holds, everyone will try to one-up each other in trying to
improve their lives.

EDIT: corrected error in (1)

~~~
manifoldlife
Hmm, equation 5 bugs me. I like the model that being less happy can drag down
other people, but this directly implies that being more happy drags your own
life down, which I feel is antithetical to the definition of happiness.

I think this stuff is really cool though, and I really like where you're
going!

Do you have proposed units for the quantities in your equations?

~~~
Mathnerd314
I think it's easier to see the relations once you substitute everything in. I
combined the perception terms instead of cancelling since presumably they're
different, but here you go:

    
    
      Happiness = Perception * (1 / Happiness) * Skill * Circumstance / Others' Actual Life
      Happiness^2 = Perception * Skill * Circumstance / Others' Actual Life
      Happiness = +-sqrt(Perception * Skill * Circumstance / Others' Actual Life)
    

I'm not certain about the negative root there; maybe that's depression?
Otherwise, looking at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Square_root_0_25.svg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Square_root_0_25.svg),
it seems reasonable; improving one of perception/skill/circumstance if it's
near-zero will improve your happiness drastically, but it's a relatively slow-
growing function so improving happiness after that has diminishing returns.

Also, as you mention we never defined the terms. I believe all of these are
generally measured on self-administered surveys with "rate X" scales, and so
are just percentages with no units.

Finally, the terms don't have any obvious correlations with the post, so I
just stuck in the things that were mentioned that seemed relevant:

* Happiness - see eqn., you can't affect this directly

* Skill - conscientiousness, self-esteem, optimism, feelings of purpose and fulfillment

* Others' Actual Life - income and wealth

* Circumstance - genes (health?), extroversion, "flow"

* Perception - paying attention to your situation/actions/feelings and in particular adjusting your estimates of success/failure chance to match reality (humans deal very badly with probabilities) - includes "agreeableness" (understanding of others), "memory" (perceptions of self being happy), and "mindfulness" (perceptions of world)

------
jqm
My dog is probably one of the happiest creatures I know. But he can't get his
own dinner and I have to take him out to poop.

If everyone was happy all the time we would probably still live in caves
because there wouldn't have been the struggle that brings us to where we are.

This in my opinion may be why religion correlates with happiness. For the very
same reason lobotomized people might be happy. Do you want to be happy or do
you want to know how the world really works and what is certainly going to
happen?

But... the dark cynicism of reality aside, I think happiness probably results
very simply from good health, physical activity, strong social connections and
a feeling of being important or succeeding. It's good to be happy sometimes.
But I still think being happy all the time might not be the best thing for us
personally, nor for us as a species. IMHOP.

~~~
davidrusu
Cynicism is not the driving force of innovation, optimism is.

It is possible to be happy and rational.

~~~
jqm
I don't disagree with either statement.

But if there isn't a problem in the first place there can't be a solution. And
if you don't see the problem because you are busy "being positive" then you
can't work on it.

I look at it like this... motion comes from polarity. Yin and Yang. Male and
Female. Happiness and Misery. Just my opinion.

And yes... I find the cult of constant happiness a bit annoying and
superficial. I do think it is good for people to be happy __most of the
time... I'm happy most of the time, but I'm not happy all the time and neither
is anyone else. Nor should they be unless they are mental patients or animals.
That's my point.

------
lilsunnybee
> 1\. If you suffer from serious illness, depression, anxiety, paranoia,
> schizophrenia, or other serious problems, seek professional help first.
> Here's how.

Link is broken. :-(

Also nowhere in the list of happiness suggestions are volunteering and helping
others to be found. Says to practice gratitude by appreciating all the good
things you have, but never to actually help those less fortunate than you.

The message is happiness is easy, as long as you aren't living below the
poverty line or dealing with major problems in your life. Well plenty of
people are dealing with both and could really use your help. Helping others
might fulfill the gratitude and 'meaningful job' portions of this vanity list
too.

------
aytekin
Here is a more actionable list:

[http://blog.bufferapp.com/10-scientifically-proven-ways-
to-m...](http://blog.bufferapp.com/10-scientifically-proven-ways-to-make-
yourself-happier)

------
NoahTheDuke
I actually found the Be Happier [0] article to be a better source of
actionable and researched-backed advice. I put a bunch of the In A Nutshell
sentences into my general Anki [1] deck, and it's had a measurable effect on
my overall happiness.

[0]:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/)

[1]: [http://ankisrs.net/](http://ankisrs.net/)

~~~
nerfhammer
Re: the anki deck, what you do put on the front of the card vs. the back of
the card?

~~~
NoahTheDuke
I know it's not recommended, but I made a single page Note Type, and just put
them on there:

<b>Be Happier</b><div> </div>Interpersonal: Give the people around you
opportunities to be generous. Ask them for favors.

When it comes up, I quietly read it out loud to myself. I've found that seeing
these cards often enough keeps their concepts on my mind, so when I go out
with friends and someone offers to buy me a beer, I accept it and thank them,
instead of refusing even to the point of awkwardness (as is my natural
inclination).

------
halfcat
The author mostly described the ancient philosophy of Stoicism. See "A Guide
To The Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy"

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/02/what-is-
stoicism-a...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/02/what-is-stoicism-and-
how-can-it-turn-your-life-to-solid-gold/)

------
anaphor
I recommend giving The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell (yes, he
wrote what amounts to a self-help book) a read. Despite being outdated by a
long while, it's still pretty relevant and useful imo.

[https://archive.org/details/TheConquestOfHappiness](https://archive.org/details/TheConquestOfHappiness)

~~~
tim333
I tried reading that and found it fairly bad. Even the opening sentence
"Animals are happy so long as they have health and enough to eat" is bollocks.
I rather liked the "Happiness Hypothesis" by Haidt although it's more of an
academic look at the area than a self help book. Also "Philosophy for Life:
And other dangerous situations" is good on the philosophical side.

------
Deivuh
As someone was currently suffering of depression, this is going to help me.
Nice article and linked resources.

~~~
chippy
Interesting use of varying tenses in your grammar. Is English your first
language?

~~~
Deivuh
No, it's spanish. Just spotted one mistake, would you care to correct what I
wrote? BTW, there's no way to edit my comment here on HN right?

------
rodrigoavie
Great article. I think that the main point is always being busy doing what you
like, namely, in the "flow" the author describes.

~~~
davidrusu
Flow has high highs but it doesn't produce a lasting contentedness that the
author is talking about

------
tim333
I tried actively increasing my happiness by reading up the on self help /
academic stuff with moderate success. I probably managed to go from well below
average (based on some Seligman tests) to a bit above. I kind of had a goal to
get to the top 10% which I don't think I've really hit but onwards anyway...

------
mansr
Most self-help advice boils down to the author saying "be more like me." This
is no exception.

~~~
asdfologist
Your point? That's true of most advice in general. It's common sense that if
something worked for one person, then perhaps it could work for another.

~~~
elbear
The difference is that this person actually backs his advice with some
studies.

------
borplk
I think more or less everything boils down to this:

1\. Good health: when you are sick, nothing else matters

2\. Money: it solves almost any solvable problem, and in case it doesn't, it
helps

3\. Family/Friends/Relationships/Love/Intimacy

------
amrit_b
I felt happy when I decided not to read the article :)

~~~
jodrellblank
I felt happy when I downvoted your casual dismissal :)

[Edit: that's not true, I felt happy before I downvoted, when I imagined
downvoting.]

------
gaelow
My problem may be laziness. I couldn't bring myself to read more than half of
such a long article, so I guess I'll just stay moderately unhappy.

~~~
chippy
The bit about procrastination was in the first half of the article :)

~~~
gaelow
Who said I read the first half?

~~~
gaelow
(LPT: Always jump straight to the conclusions part of the article. Then,
maybe, read the parts that may interest you. The Internet is an infinite sea
of data; If you stop swimming or dive too deep, you'll drown on it.)

------
kstop
Pretty sure the last thing the world needs is Less Wrong cross-pollinating
with Hacker News.

~~~
barry-cotter
Really? Why? What exactly is wrong with lesswrong? Please be specific.

~~~
sehr
From this thread [0], they are looked at as a sort of cult. Funnily enough,
they look at HN the same way.

[0]
-[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8053606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8053606)

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Funnily enough, they look at HN the same way._

[citation needed]. This would be somewhat... surprising.

------
pajju
To be happy

1\. Be like Water. Keep your mind like Water. Stateless. Formless. Keep
flowing like water. Don't settle & Stop.

[http://soopara.com/being-water-be-water-my-friend-be-
water-b...](http://soopara.com/being-water-be-water-my-friend-be-water-be-
water/)

2\. Fall in love with yourself more than anyone else.

Fall in love with your Passion, it already knows everything about you.

3\. Try to Know Everything about your Previous life(life's).

Thus, know the purpose of your life & connect those dots. Get closer to your
niche & Life purpose.

4\. Surround yourself with Right people.

5\. Be in a place(Create that place) for yourself, where you got more freedom
& autonomy to think and live.

6\. Finally to be happy, be happy, create Good, great & positive thoughts
always.

What we think, we become. Its that simple!

Our thoughts = Key Life Formula.

------
Jweb_Guru
Just for those of you who aren't aware, LessWrong is a site devoted to the
cult of the "singularity." The site founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is a secular
humanist who is probably most well-known for his Harry Potter fanfiction,
"Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." His core beliefs include that
the obvious goal of the human race is immortality, that it is justifiable to
kill a man if it would remove a spec of dust from the eye of every other
person on Earth, and that the most important thing we could possibly be doing
right now is devoting all of our time developing a mathematical model of a
"safe AI." The site frequently dallies with discredited ideas like Drexlerian
nanobots and some on the site take absurd concepts like "Roko's Basilisk" [1]
seriously.

All of this is not to discredit this specific article. And there are lots of
very intelligent posters there. But I tend to take everything I read there
with a massive grain of salt.

[1]
[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk)

~~~
vesche
>LessWrong is a site devoted to the cult of the "singularity."

LessWrong is a discussion forum mostly pertaining to psychology, philosophy,
cognitive biases, etc,. A frequent topic of discussion is artificial
intelligence, but it is hardly centric. Saying that LessWrong is a hangout
spot for "singularity cult members" (as you call them) is simply incorrect on
multiple levels. Technological singularity is no more than a scientific
hypothesis, and it's slightly dramatic to say it perhaps has cult members
worshiping and breeding its realism. In actuality technological singularity
just has scientists and researches observing/theorizing its stepping stones
and outcomes. Maybe you meant transhumanists rather than "singularity cult
members", which I suppose makes more since from your other statements.

>Eliezer Yudkowsky, is a secular humanist who is probably most well-known for
his Harry Potter fanfiction

Yudkowsky is also a prominent researcher of a variety of artificial
intelligence topics which is enhancing the field. Primarily he focuses not on
developing a Strong AI (AGI), but rather focusing on safety issues that such a
technology would pose.

>the most important thing we could possibly be doing right now is devoting all
of our time developing a mathematical model of a "safe AI."

"friendly AI"* and I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say
mathematical model, you should do more research it's mostly hypotheses and
ideas for system transparency.

>But I tend to take everything I read there with a massive grain of salt.

Maybe you should visit LessWrong and read some articles about cognitive biases
so you understand why someone saying "massive grain of salt" makes me want to
kill innocent puppies.

~~~
joesmo
> Primarily he focuses not on developing a Strong AI (AGI), but rather
> focusing on safety issues that such a technology would pose.

That's absurd at worst, science fiction at best, akin to worrying about manned
flight __safety __in the 1500 's.

~~~
namnatulco
Are you really trying to deny that google cars and other automated systems at
least partially based on AI have safety issues? Even if we're talking
autonomous, "life-like" AI, there is a long list of interesting philosophical
and legal questions to be asked. I can't say I find any of the statements here
or in the article very appealing, but you shouldn't dismiss real
safety/security issues just because you don't like the guy.

~~~
davidgerard
Are you really trying to assert that MIRI is addressing systems on the level
of Google cars, in any serious technical manner? If so, can you point to
examples?

~~~
namnatulco
No, I'm saying that AI has wider applications, and I was responding to the
manned flight safety example. Also, I'm arguing that we shouldn't dismiss the
guy's arguments just because he's an ass. Especially with regards to this
article, we really don't need to resort to a straw man to refute what he
wrote.

