Yup those two things are very often far apart, because the things you need to do to be successful require doing things which make you unhappy or at least don’t bring you immediate happiness. Which I think in most instances is fine and healthy, studying to get good grade isn’t fun, whereas partying with your friends is, but it’s necessary sacrifice for success. I think the issue comes where you sacrifice all the time and never enjoy the success, you just keep sacrificing to achieve more success and eventually realise the success in and of itself is meaningless.
For me happiness is a fleeting thing and not necessarily the right goal either. I think contentment and joy are much more meaningful things that are key to a satisfying life - and ironically more happiness. I think focusing on happiness as a goal tends to make people less happy overall. That is my entirely uneducated opinion - but hey, I’m content with my lot.
Haha I have a way of doing that, I think I struggle to understand your position (was similar when we discussed you being a hedonist but genuinely deriving no pleasure from training yet doing it anyway). I think this point I’d easier for me to comprehend; back to the original comment, food no longer brings you any emotions and is purely functional (outside of the emotional side of shared experiences).
I have a theory that happiness is the price you pay for success. And that people that society defines as successful (good career/high level athlete) are not very happy.
Of course there are exceptions. But not many. Not enough for me to change my mind
I tend to agree. A side from the say - I’m happy being content.
I’d also add that that success if what you define it as. Many people would say I’m successful. I’m mid 30’s, and I’m financially secure. More so than any of my friends. I have a nice house and a small mortgage that I will be paid off before I’m 55. Maybe even 50 depending.
To me - I’m only half done. But (and this is not a sob story) I’m REALLY unhappy most of the time. I’m always working hard to better things. Its annoying. I’m always stressed about the next thing. It drives my wife insane.
I’m never in the “now” always looking back at my mistakes or forward at the next challenge
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So much stuff over the last few posts and I don’t have my own thoughts well enough composed so I’m just going to throw a few of my thoughts out there.
I’m convinced that there is an upper limit to “how much” of something leads to increased happiness/contentness (is that a word?). For example, its been studied well enough to know that above a certain income level, there is no correlation between income and happiness. I’m convinced that that applies to other things as well.
Law of diminishing marginal utility- not even the behavioural ppl argue with this one
My questions are: is happiness really necessary? Can you be fulfilled without being happy?
I’ve been debating with my parents on this topic. They think it’s more important to be happy. I argue that I’d rather be successful, even if I’m not happy
I’ll get back to you on this one. The problem with non- monetary constructs is that they’re not quantifiable so researchers have to choose operational definitions that end up being very problematic, one of which is to try to elicit ppls valuations of things like success by having ppl assign prices
Definitely. There’re a couple of widely accepted scales to “measure “ happiness that have some consistency and good correlation with other things associated with happiness (ie low score on depression scale, good health), but they’re far from perfect
Good health seems like another very nebulous definition. How do you fit a scale to “healthy”? And do you run into the same thing as with money? Can you be “healthy enough”? And where is that point?
I think we’re all hoping to experience the same feeling, but we’re using different terms. To me, happy, content, and satisfied are almost synonyms. It’s possible that another language would use the same word for all three.
If you want to separate the terms then I think you could be happy without being fulfilled.
For example, “I’m happy with where I am now, but I’m not satisfied. I want to continue to grow and improve.”
I think happiness and contentment should be a state of being - how you feel in the here and now. Satisfied/fulfilled could be more applied to concrete achievements instead of feelings.
Athletes can win. That makes them happy but they don’t quit. They want to continue winning so they go back to work.
Dang, the more I ramble, the more these words become interchangeable.
You’re hypothesis might be significantly impacted by:
This and:
Also really sorry to hear the above, I’d say we’re similar in circumstances, I’m sure I’d be classed as moderately successful (multiple sources of income, great marriage, loving family, live in an awesome part of the world) and I am happy the vast majority of the time. I would say personally that should be the norm, not the exception.
This is me, and I’m sure most people on these boards, doesn’t mean you need to be unhappy with where you are. You can enjoy the journey whilst being excited about the destination!
That’s key, I think you need to be able to find joy in the challenges, not stress about the fact you’re not there yet.
Knowing part of the problem helps. Thoroughly recommend a book by Tim Keller (short easy read): the Freedom of Self forgetfulness.
100% agreed, I would get spiritual here but I’ll leave it. Just to say there is almost nothing in life that when taken to excess isn’t harmful and I think for the vast majority of the time the limit is significantly lower than most people think.
CS Lewis wrote a space trilogy where a guy travels to Mars (from memory) and encounters an alien race and they talk about a previous excellent experience and the Martians are puzzled at why the human would want to repeat it (or the other way round but it’s been a long time) they would just enjoy the memory of it. I think so often we’re driven to chase the way we feel and it’s like any drug addiction the first time round is always the best, after that you’re just trying to chase that feeling, and it never is quite the same again.
This is the basis of me thinking chasing happiness leads to unhappiness.
To what end? When you are successful I doubt you’ll be satisfied with it (see Carl’s comments even he defined himself as successful by some measure but finds nothing in it).
You may know the theory of diminishing marginal utility, but I highly doubt you will be able to apply it to yourself.
That’s the point. Idk about others but I find a strange satisfaction in process of pursuing something. I like the planning and work required to reach a goal, as long as it’s one I set for myself
