A few thoughts on the matter:

- Happiness is fixed, perhaps. Short-term, it isn't (coke and hookers work!). Long-term, it is. People fall back to a baseline. So then, being smart doesn't help you.

- Dumb people might be misreporting their happiness. So smart people are making themselves happier, but all the studies are done on self-reported happiness, and the dumb people report that they are happier than they really are.

- There's a difference between intelligence and wisdom: if you're intelligent, you have good models. If you're wise, you make good decisions. You might think that you need to be intelligent to be wise, but you also need wisdom to navigate uncertainty, ie you need to exercise your decision making for when you don't have a good model. Dumb people have to do this a lot.

- It may just be that you can make yourself happier, but being intelligent doesn't give you differential access to the levers that you need. Eg to be happy maybe you need an active social life. Well, there's no particular reason having high IQ would help that. We generally have a tendency to think that IQ is a kind of magic substance that can do anything, but why would that be?

- Being smart could actively harm your happiness. I told my kid he needed to wait for his friends to grow up, they will stop only caring about football (luckily the prophesy came true and they are having a great time in their little nerd group). Another friend has the same problem with his kid, they just don't have the social ties available yet. BTW, I really do think there's something to this one, you need the social side to be happy. There's a few HN people who also give me that "finally found my tribe" vibe when they write. I met a guy on the train who saw me coding, and he had the same story.

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wouldbecouldbe 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It’s really not fixed; you can easily train your mind to be less neurotic and more joyful

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AaronAPU 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It really is wild the degree to which you can simply dictate your own mood.

If I catch myself feeling grumpy or down, it is pretty easy to reframe and summon genuine happiness.

Even during intense suffering of various kinds. To a large extent you get to decide which universe you live in.

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nvarsj 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> To a large extent you get to decide which universe you live in.

It's a naïve view of the spectrum of human experience.

I'm a believer in the HSP theory. Some of us are wired to feel things more strongly at a low level. There's only so much the thinking part of the brain can do before getting completely exhausted and overwhelmed.

Not to mention the vast difference in life experiences. From the yuppie that has everything in life, to the person from a broken home who had to fight for everything. Or simply someone that has children vs the childless adult.

I have friends who are like what you describe. From my pov, they seem to lack much depth of emotion at all. And they don't even realise it. But I think it's also just how each of us are.

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lordnacho 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is a bit surprising to hear.

So what should I have done when my parents died?

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cyberpunk 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ah come on that’s not what they’re talking about. Feeling a bit down — sure some upbeat music may nudge you out of it, but loss like losing people isn’t being fixed with a mixtape.

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fragmede 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There is no "should". Everyone grieves differently. Whats right for GP commenter isn't necessarily right for you.

That said, what do you want to optimize for? Time spent grieving? Money spent on the funeral(s)? Money spent on therapy? Time spent in therapy? Lack of having to change as a person? Having to change as a person? Grieving "correctly"? (to reiterate from above there is no right way, but some people think if they're not doing it "right" there's something wrong with them.)

Just not killing yourself from the pain of it all in the next 5 years?

Honoring their lifes properly? Doing a good job of stepping into your new role in your family? Getting revenge for some transgression you can no longer tell them they did to you?

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lordnacho 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe feeling less sad?

	▲	fragmede 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm sorry, grief is the worst. To attack the sadness directly, which is a result of chemicals in your brain, there are specific other chemicals you can add that will raise serotonin and norepinephrine and also dopamine. It's not the most sustainable solution, however. Other ways of boosting those neurotransmitters include running real hard, getting a tattoo, having sex. Processing the emotions, possibly with the help of a professional, is the recommended long term solution though. It won't bring them back, but it'll help understand the pain, and hopefully heal it.

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Telaneo 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> It really is wild the degree to which you can simply dictate your own mood.

This is not a universally true experience, and it's sometimes even hard for me to believe that there are people like you out there who are able to change their mood just by thinking differently. My own experience is that doing that is about as helpful as thinking differently about how hungry I am works to sate my hunger. I can ignore it to some extent, but it doesn't change in kind.

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aleph_minus_one 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> It’s really not fixed; you can easily train your mind to be less neurotic and more joyful

How?

	▲	maerF0x0 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		IDK if it's evidence based (or up to your standards), but i've heard gratitude practices, cardiovascular exercise, gut biome are 3 of many potential interventions?
	▲	zeroonetwothree 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		CBT worked well for me.

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10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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ruszki 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What do you mean on baseline? Generally speaking, I’m definitely less happy post COVID, than before 2020. I met the first utterly broken, toxic person in my life, whom I allowed to hurt me. This is on top of all the bat shit crazy things happened with me that year, and not just because of COVID. I’m a different person since then. My baseline definitely moved, as I mean.