| ▲ | zdragnar 12 hours ago |
| As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations. Smart people see more variables that could be changed, more components that could be modified, and are less likely to accept things as they are. This creates a false sense of ease by which reality could be modified, and thus higher expectations for the world around them. I suspect this misplaces happiness and contentment, but the two are also very strongly correlated for many people. |
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| ▲ | chermi 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I think smart people are told much more often as kids how bright of a future they have. So they build up expectations of "succeeding" in some sense (becoming a doctor, getting rich, etc.). These are the sort of expectations you mention in your quote. Not only is there often pressure put on you if you're smart, you adopt those expectations yourself. Or at least hold yourself to that standard. Of course, being smart doesn't automatically equal success, there are so many other factors. So people often fall short of expectations and feel shitty about themselves and are unhappy. Then there's also the fact that high achievers often hold themselves to unrealistic standards even if they "succeed", so they also struggle to be happy. |
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| ▲ | jebarker 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | For me this has 100% been the main source of unhappiness in my life. I wish nobody had ever told me how smart I was as a child. The reality was that I was above average but in an unremarkable collection of kids mostly. I’ve done fine in life academically and career wise but I’ll never live up to the expectations that were planted in my head. Thankfully you can get over this/yourself and let go of ego, ambition, achievement and all that unnecessary crap. | | |
| ▲ | apsurd 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | What's interesting to me is how all of it is true. You were and are in an elite tier, the measure is purely how we care to slice it. Reminds me of the aphorism "whether you think you can or can't, you're right." I find this saying really insightful and true. Others may find it flippant and void of any meaning. The sports analogy of what you shared is: "there are levels to this". At any given level-child, minor, high-school, college, division of college, semi-pro, overseas, pro, olympian, elite-pro, champion- it seems legitimate that the praise is bound to the context. And getting to the next level requires more growth and effort to think it's even possible. Maybe you won't, but whether you think you can or can't... Just some thoughts. | | |
| ▲ | bitexploder 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | This gets to the heart of why visualization works. When you’re conscious mind visualizes outcomes, around say work or sport performance or really anything, your subconscious mind can’t differentiate it from reality; the better you are at visualizing the harder it is for your subconscious mind to tell this. It is why visualization is such a powerful performance technique. Negative self talk is really bad for you. | | |
| ▲ | ryandv 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is more or less the basis of a lot of western esotericism and ceremonial magick. Consider it a weaponization of the placebo effect, or the closest thing to creatio ex nihilo one can personally experience. Dialogue with the purveyor of negative self-talk is another modality in this space. |
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| ▲ | mattgreenrocks 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There is a HealthygamerGG video where he talks about gifted kids as special needs kids bc of this factor. I found it really enlightening. I definitely had to confront it in my own life. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QUjYy4Ksy1E | | |
| ▲ | immibis 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | There is also one where he talks about how about half of his suicidal patients are not delusional and don't have some mood disorder, but are correctly recognising that their lives objectively aren't worth living. (Which is something he tries to fix.) | | |
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| ▲ | machomaster 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If people would not tell you how smart you are, you would blame your unhappiness on low esteem and on the lack of support in your childhood. Which one would you prefer? It's all postfactum explanation attempts, that create links that usually are not there. Another, internally happier, positive and more cheerful person would be the exact opposite - would always find ways to spin things around for the positive. It's all about the perspective. | | |
| ▲ | lukan 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | "If people would not tell you how smart you are, you would blame your unhappiness on low esteem and on the lack of support in your childhood." It depends how it was told. Being told "you are smart" vs. "you are the smartest kid" makes a big difference. | | |
| ▲ | machomaster 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | As is not saying anything about your smartness vs. being actively told that you are dumb. Radical examples should be compared with each other, as should more balanced ones. In both cases I would prefer to be told about being smart. In a vacuum, self-confidence in kids is more useful than lack of it. | | |
| ▲ | jebarker 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think you’re right that I’m a negatively biased person, so the praise may have been received differently if I was a more positive person. However, the outcome of the praise was that I was never self-confident and had/have low self-esteem. I think what I received was closer to “you’re the smartest kid” and that set me up believing I was destined to be the _most_ successful adult even if I never felt capable of achieving that. |
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| ▲ | johndhi 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Lot of interesting views in this thread. One thing I loved from Osho (spiritual guru) is the notion that everyone thinks they are "extraordinary" but actually the happiest person is the person who is ordinary. Being ordinary and just eating breakfast and sleeping and doing a job is - in fact - extraordinarily rare. | | |
| ▲ | mancerayder 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | The same Osho who ran an expensive cult in the 70s and 80s? Putting that aside, it's hard for me to associate simple with happiness. That's the opposite of motivation, from my unenlightened perspective. It's hardly a rational or smart choice since not being challenged also makes one a bit narrower when it comes to seeking out new experiences. But even if you take the intellect out of it, it 'feels' wrong. And some things are challenging to achieve and bring fulfillment. | | |
| ▲ | PaulDavisThe1st 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | If you haven't done so already, you should probably read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. If you have read it already, you should probably read it again. |
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| ▲ | pfannkuchen 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Isn’t there a danger though of running into differences between oneself and others and concluding that the cause is oneself being “weird” and not the inherent difficulty of bridging the intelligence gap and correspondingly different ways of thinking? Like I could see a very bright kid ending up with low self esteem due to being different if they aren’t told that the differences may be due to their intelligence. Like someone with average intelligence may have difficulty understanding and modeling someone with two or more standard deviations above average intelligence, and all social groups are definitionally numerically weighted towards the mean and away from the edges so absent some filtering the very bright kids will be unusual. | | |
| ▲ | chermi 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Do you mean that there may be some harm in "hiding" from children their intelligence? I can see that maybe at early ages, but certainly they'll eventually catch on with grades and such? I don't know when different parts of personality manifest, maybe some child psychologist can chime in. But my hunch is that maybe not saying anything until grade 2-3 could potentially help. Above all, I think the key is to tell them that it's trying hard that leads to getting what you want. Obviously that's a bit of a lie, but I think acceptable until a later age. | | |
| ▲ | jebarker 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Above all, I think the key is to tell them that it's trying hard that leads to getting what you want Totally agree. This is now the approach I’m taking with my 4 year old who is clearly quite bright. |
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| ▲ | hansvm 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I wouldn't have believed this at all till I met people who fell into that trap, after which I'm genuinely curious how common it is. It's interesting how different personalities (innate or learned -- probably doesn't matter here) interact with the same stimuli. It's easy for some people to wholeheartedly believe authority figures telling them that being smart and hard-working is all it takes to succeed, and it's easy for others to recognize that those qualities are neither sufficient nor necessary. The externalized thinking our elders do for us no doubt shapes our lives, but the impact of that shaping is more personalized than I ever used to give it credit for. | |
| ▲ | necovek 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Most smart people I know already do not link "success" to "happiness": relationships, experiences, family and health is usually the driver of their happiness or lack thereof. The only change is that the baseline for unhappiness is higher (so not just food on the table and roof over your head, but a decent career and mid-class lifestyle is sufficient). |
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| ▲ | cortesoft 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There was a movie a while back that talked about what makes people happy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_(2011_film) It had some interesting ideas, and one of the things that stuck with me is the idea of your brain being a "difference engine" in that the variation is what matters. If we don't experience pain, we can't experience pleasure. It seems a bit simplistic when stated that way, but I think there is something to it. Another thing I have come to believe as I have aged is that our western (American especially) society places too much emphasis on happiness, in that we think happiness is (and should be) the prime goal of every human. I have come to believe that less and less, and think something like satisfaction, contentment, and purpose are much more important as life goals than happiness. Happiness is an important part of life, and is important for reaching the other goals I mentioned, but it is not the end goal (to me). I think most of us somewhat intuitively understand this, although our response is often to redefine what happiness is rather than concluding happiness isn't our end goal. If happiness was everything, we would be much more accepting and encouraging towards hedonism than we are. A heroin addict who has a good clean supply and no responsibilities would be the ultimate dream life if we truly believed pure happiness was the most important thing. |
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| ▲ | BrenBarn 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You say "redefine what happiness is", but I'm not sure there's any "re"-definition necessary, it can just be about how you define it. I wouldn't say that the things you mention (satisfaction, purpose, etc.) are alternatives to happiness, but rather that they're particular forms of happiness. And maybe the hedonism of the heroin addict is another form. I'm not entirely sure it's incorrect to say that the heroin addict's life isn't a valid and desirable form of happiness in theory. The problem is that in practice pursuing that type of happiness has a high risk of plunging into extreme unhappiness. The same might be said of various other forms of happiness that we see as at least somewhat less objectionable. For instance, people who do BASE jumping may find a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment from doing it, but still many people might view that skeptically as a path to happiness, because again it has high risks of bad outcomes. I tend to think in terms of aiming for what I call "robust happiness", which means a form of happiness that's resistant to changes in circumstance, and in particular to the awareness of other people's happiness. When you're happy in a way where you can look at other people being happy and not wish to have their life or their form of happiness instead of yours, your happiness is robust in a certain sense. | | |
| ▲ | apsurd 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I like your idea of robust happiness and it being robust against comparison. |
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| ▲ | SchemaLoad 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >It seems a bit simplistic when stated that way, but I think there is something to it. I think this is pretty uncontroversial and you can observe it everywhere. Even in music, if you want the beat to hit harder, take it away for a short period, and when you bring it back it will feel like it hits harder and with more energy even though it's exactly the same volume as it was before. Though it doesn't really explain how some people are continuously more or less happy. If the brain only cared about change, you could only ever be an average amount happy. Clearly something about continuous discontent and negativity still impacts you even if it might dull. | |
| ▲ | ozim an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If we don't experience pain, we can't experience pleasure.. I think there is loads of classic literature that is basically saying that in between the lines or even directly. | |
| ▲ | Fraterkes 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | What I struggle with is that it’s hard to derive meaning from purpose when the best I can hope for is improving the lives of others until they are at the same level of comfort as me: struggling to find meaning and happiness. We can all derive purpose from trying to improve eachothers lives, but if none of us end up happy, what makes that work actually meaningfull?
At some point we need something that is good in and off itself. That’s what happiness is meant to be I think |
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| ▲ | FloorEgg 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Satisfaction is reality minus expectations. "Smart" tends to be used such that includes intelligence (rate of learning) and knowledge (how much is known). Satisfaction comes from accepting what is outside our control (accurate expectations), and making continuous progress/improvement on what is within our control (our own perceptions and actions). Intelligence and knowledge maybe don't correlate as much with wisdom as one would expect. I have met people who learn slow and don't know much but are very wise, and satisfied. Lastly, happiness is always fleeting. Happiness can't be enduring, but it can be blocked by ego and high expectations. Satisfaction can be enduring, but correlates with virtuous actions, not intelligence. |
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| ▲ | stephen_g 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations. I don’t think that’s true, e.g. from my personal experience, I’m far more optimistic than my wife, but even though she has far lower expectations she still takes negative things with far more disappointment than I do when we face the same hardship. So generally I’m a much happier person despite having higher expectations. This is independent of intellect too for us, she would readily admit I’m more intelligent. I don’t know whether it’s a innate thing or something learned but the key seems to be that I am always primed to look on the bright side, like my brain automatically weights positives much stronger than negatives, whereas hers does the opposite. For both of us this seems to be self-reinforcing too because we always have confirmation bias because I’ve focused on the positives and can say “see it wasn’t that bad” and she will be like “see, I thought it would be bad” for the same thing. |
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| ▲ | hinkley 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Polymaths in particular could be good or great at many things. It’s a matter of choice and opportunity. But they can’t be great at absolutely everything. So one choice closes another. And the grass is greener on the other side. |
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| ▲ | hamburglar 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There’s a great book by Arthur Brooks called From Strength to Strength which has a slightly different take on “reality minus expectations”: think of it as a fraction, where what you have is the numerator and what you want is the denominator. If you keep ratcheting up what you want (which is what the hedonic treadmill is all about —- you reach a goal and enjoy it for a nanosecond and then suddenly you need an even bigger achievement to satisfy you), you push happiness further away. And conversely, if you learn to want things that are actually in reach, you become happier as you achieve them. |
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| ▲ | accrual 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations. Similarly, stress is the difference between ones expected reality and ones actual reality. Less expectation, less stress. More acceptance, more happiness. |
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| ▲ | BrokenCogs 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That's a good quote, but it suggests that unhappy people are those who overthink and have unrealistic expectations, whereas truly happy people have expectations that match their reality. so in the end, maybe smart people are those who are better at setting their expectations compared to others (maybe more ambitious type A folk) |
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| ▲ | aleph_minus_one 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > whereas truly happy people have expectations that match their reality By your hypothesis people who are poor, at the bottom of society, and told that they have no chance in life are the most happy ones. Additionally, it imples that a great way to make people happy is to brainwash them all the time that they have no chance in life, and additionally suppress them so that their expectations match their reality. This whole idea feels deeply wrong and dystopian to me. | | |
| ▲ | rgrs 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Poor people have no expectations? | |
| ▲ | BrokenCogs 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, it feels wrong and dystopian but I think there is a hint of truth there? We're all happier when we're brainwashed by mindless feeds on our phones. Then, once we snap out of it, we're supremely unhappy when we realize that what's in our feeds is not our reality. |
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| ▲ | koakuma-chan 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Happiness is just chemicals, it has nothing to do with that. |
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| ▲ | chermi 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Computers are just electrons moving. Biology is just phyics. See how little that explains?
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, even if it's still encoded in the parts. | | |
| ▲ | mym1990 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I get the sentiment though. Happiness is a mix of the right hormones firing, so the question is: how does intelligence affect different types of hormones, if at all. Given how sensitive our hormones are, it would be difficult to control only for “intelligence”. | | |
| ▲ | anyfoo 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | By that logic, "How does loved one dying affect different type of hormones, if at all. Given how sensitive our hormones are, it would be difficult to control only for 'loss of a loved one'". If you have depression or another condition affecting your affect and your emotions, sure. Otherwise it's pretty obvious to anyone that concepts on orders of magnitude higher levels than hormones being correlated with happiness, or if you prefer, those concepts having a significant effect on the overall action of those hormones. |
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| ▲ | koakuma-chan 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Except happiness is a well-known thing, and there are substances like alcohol, cocaine, etc, that are optimized for it. | | |
| ▲ | anyfoo 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Putting aside that they are not optimized but just happen to have an effect, would you claim that these are the only things that affect happiness/its relevant chemicals? | | |
| ▲ | koakuma-chan 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I would claim all other things are far less effective, to the point where they have little to no effect. | | |
| ▲ | anyfoo 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm sorry, but I don't think that makes sense, and that it's pretty obvious that it doesn't. I don't have experience with cocaine, but as a Bavarian I made plenty of experience with alcohol. I've never been addicted, but I had my fair share of Oktoberfest and beer garden visits. And yet you don't see my optimizing my life around it. In fact, nowadays I have a beer every few months if even, simply because most of my hobbies don't work well with alcohol. As for cocaine: As I said, no experience, but it appears to me that even very wealthy people who probably consume it also still do other things in life, despite not having to for income etc. | | |
| ▲ | koakuma-chan 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | In my experience that is the case. I haven't gone to the gym for a few weeks now, because after years of doing it, I no longer feel anything. I go to Walmart every day and buy Apple juice and Kit Kat, and that does very little, incomparable to taking pleasure-optimized drugs. | | |
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| ▲ | dpe82 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The widely held notion that happiness (or lack thereof) is simply the result of chemical (im)balances is one of the greatest PR victories of the pharmaceutical industry. | | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Well, people consume cocaine for a reason. But I understand your objection. It is a bit reductive to think like this. | | |
| ▲ | CodeMage 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Would you say cocaine makes those people happy? | | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, at least some of them for some time. I remember an old addict speaking of cocaine as if it was his only true love. Waxed poetical about it, the way we remember our first kiss. Seems that at least some people are wired this way. | | | |
| ▲ | koakuma-chan 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Drugs 100% make people feel happy. | | |
| ▲ | lr4444lr 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | ... until the CNS homeostasis stops responding to them, which is why they keep taking bigger hits. Something more complex is going on. | |
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| ▲ | CamperBob2 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | What else is there? | | |
| ▲ | mixedCase 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Happiness chemicals are the end result, and end result we cannot cause directly, anyway. What leads you there, how the process involves your particular brain and environment, and how it acts as a feedback loop are a higher concern. Even if one day you could just squirt the cocktail directly into your receptors or otherwise trick them, there's more to happiness as a part of life than turning yourself into a vegetable, but I digress. | | |
| ▲ | koakuma-chan 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Death is the ultimate happiness because you get to be relieved from endless suffering that life is. Other than that, yep just take some drugs. |
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| ▲ | anyfoo 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Technically correct, but if that's what you reduce it to, why did you bother to reply? You only changed some light patterns on a bunch of atoms. | |
| ▲ | throw0101d 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Happiness is just chemicals, it has nothing to do with that. Your choices, (in)actions, and perceptions are things that can cause the release of said chemicals. Your intelligence, as well as abilities and habits, can effect how (or even whether you can) do or do not do things. | |
| ▲ | lr4444lr 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Are you not aware that many psych drugs that modify brain chemistry fail to work for people? Even when they are tested to have adequate or high levels? | | | |
| ▲ | pickledonions49 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | chemicals are released by one part of the brain and interpreted by another. the parts of the brain that release those chemicals release it when that part of the brain is stimulated. this kind of mental stimulation can be heavily reliant on quality of life. | |
| ▲ | elevatortrim 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It has some because expectations and satisfaction of those alter hormones. |
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