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A comment on Want to Be Happy? Think Like an Old Person (2017). Parent comment

Re:Want to Be Happy? Think Like an Old Person (2017) by marssaxman on Saturday April 07, 2018 @02:45AM (#16779686)
I am 41, and have recently been coming to terms with the fact that my relentless drive to pursue big dreams has been one of the chief obstacles to my own happiness, in part because it has encouraged me to devalue comfort and everyday desires. In fact, failing to build in a foundation of comfortable enjoyment has been a significant impediment to accomplishing those big dreams, because the resulting build-boom-crash-regroup cycle has limited my ability to apply energy consistently.

Life is mostly random; you don't get to control as much of it as your analytical brain might like to believe.

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Re:Want to Be Happy? Think Like an Old Person (2017) by p1esk on Saturday April 07, 2018 @12:42PM (#16781481)
Funny, I'm 40 and I'm the opposite: I value comfort and everyday desires too much, and that competes with the drive to pursue big dreams. I feel like if that drive was stronger I'd accomplish so much more, and would be more happy as a result.
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Re:Want to Be Happy? Think Like an Old Person (2017) by marssaxman on Saturday April 07, 2018 @05:24PM (#16783074)
Balance in all things, I suppose. It seems to me now that looking for happiness in accomplishment is a bad gamble, because life is not predictable enough. You can't make success happen just by working at it; you have to be in the right place at the right time with the right idea, you have to encounter none of the many outside factors which might derail you, and it's only in hindsight that you get to find out whether you ever had any real hope of success.

Your project will probably fail, because most projects fail, so if you are deferring present happiness in order to invest in the hope of future success, you are probably going to be less happy overall. Success feels good, to be sure - but then what? Another project, which will probably fail. So I think it's important to find a way to live a happy life whether you are trying to accomplish anything or not, and then the occasional success can be a bonus when it happens.

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