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Re:‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whol... by trevyn on Thursday November 29, 2018 @03:28PM (#18563660)
I deeply disagree with this — if you can achieve happiness without meaning, there is no need for meaning.

Of course, I understand that achieving happiness can be challenging, and that seeking meaning can be a meaningful step on that path.

But it is possible to have happiness without meaning, and that seems more valuable than meaning without happiness, or happiness that relies on a sense of meaning.

Re:‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whol... by extragood on Thursday November 29, 2018 @04:50PM (#18564410)
According to Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics", happiness is the greatest good in life.

The pursuit of a meaningful life puts way too much pressure on identifying what is meaningful and worth our energies. That would probably decrease my happiness.

What if I can't find any pursuit that I consider to be the most meaningful? Am I OK committing to something that could potentially be less than optimal in terms of meaningfulness?

It isn't that important for me to evaluate my actions on meaningfulness - I'm bound to disappoint my self by that metric.

Prioritizing meaningfulness over happiness is putting the cart before the horse, in my mind.

Re:‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whol... by trevyn on Thursday November 29, 2018 @04:59PM (#18564504)
Ha, I think you just explained why Effective Altruists always seem so stressed out.
Re:‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whol... by Domenic_S on Thursday November 29, 2018 @03:57PM (#18563938)
Re:‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whol... by trevyn on Thursday November 29, 2018 @04:25PM (#18564165)
Ah, interesting. Thank you for challenging my assertion.

Upon deeper introspection, my own personal experience of “happiness without meaning” is closer to “the meaning is just the universe/physics unfolding (and I happen to be a part of that)”, which is so all-encompassing that it has little meaning itself, in the Kolmogorov complexity sense. And concomitant well-being, which I would define as closer to “completely neutral affective experience” rather than the “positive affective experience” described as hedonic well-being in the study you referenced.

Re:‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whol... by nradov on Friday November 30, 2018 @09:47AM (#18569441)
Why is happiness valuable?