[HN Gopher] If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy? ___________________________________________________________________ If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy? Author : sandes Score : 55 points Date : 2022-02-12 20:55 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (nav.al) (TXT) w3m dump (nav.al) | keiferski wrote: | I've always thought the search for happiness is framed | incorrectly from the start. Happiness is a short term emotional | state. It comes from essentially mundane activities (more | specifically, your mental reaction to them) and isn't the | consequence of a larger vision or long-term project in the way | "being wealthy" is. Being happy is more like feeling full after | eating a meal; while you can structure your life in such a way | that you eat well on a regular basis, it's the _eating_ that | makes you feel full, not the long-term plan of always having good | food around. | ghoomketu wrote: | Your happiness' biggest killer is thinking about the future / | dwelling on the past. I think smart people do this a lot more, | which may explain the correlation. | | From Buddha to Eckhart Tolle to Dalai lama almost every book and | teaching about happiness boils down to living in the present. But | I guess it's much easier said than done because our minds always | like to wonder (evolution to anticipate dangers perhaps?) and | living in the present is like keeping your balance on a | stationary bicycle with gravity always working against you. | | But fwiw we do get glimpses of true happiness say when you're | like in the zone and totally immersed at the task at hand that | you're thinking of nothing else and just happy (doing what you're | doing). | m0llusk wrote: | Both success and satisfaction are more valuable to me than | happiness. | alimov wrote: | So success and satisfaction are not the things that keep you | feeling good/happy? I don't understand what you mean to say. | dejj wrote: | Whenever I feel sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. So | they say on television. Bluntly: If you're so smart, then why are | you conflating smartness with happiness. IMO the two things | happen in different hemispheres. You can't reason yourself into | happiness. You can compartmentalize-away unhappiness-- for a | time. And surprisingly unsophisticated things make you happy. It | doesn't make sense. And it doesn't need to, because "making | sense" is not any place along the axis of happy-unhappy. | dmje wrote: | Really strange article. It felt like someone writing "I've got | cheese, so I like the colour red". The cause effect isn't clear | to me, at all, and the article isn't nearly well written enough | to expand on anything meaningfully. It's a false dichotomy, or at | least a not well explained argument. | | IMO the living in the moment thing mentioned elsewhere is | probably the best known connection to happiness that has broad | "proof" around it, but again I'm not convinced this has anything | to do with intelligence. | | If we're gonna get deep about it I suppose you could argue that | "beginner's mind" is what is required to assume states of now- | ness, and at a stretch you could say that a beginner's mind could | be equated with a stupid mind...but really, it's not like that at | all. Meditative states, flow states, just being content - these | can be attained by anyone, irrespective of intelligence. | stackbutterflow wrote: | > Really strange article. It felt like someone writing "I've | got cheese, so I like the colour red". The cause effect isn't | clear to me, at all, and the article isn't nearly well written | enough to expand on anything meaningfully. It's a false | dichotomy, or at least a not well explained argument. | | In the words of the author: "If you're smart, you can figure | out how to be happy within your biological constraints." | Rephrased, the title could be "If you're so smart, why can't | you figure out how to be happy". | | On this subject, here's a video discussing these types of | arguments: https://youtu.be/Q6wmIehW6EM?list=LL&t=47 | serverholic wrote: | I saw something on the internet recently that had a profound | effect on me. It was about the idea that our thoughts occur in | a mental "space" and that space varies in size moment-to- | moment. This space can reference a physical space or something | more abstract like a social connection space. | | For example, let's say I ask you "do you matter?". Here's what | you might say depending on the size of the space your brain | currently occupies. | | The room you occupy - Yes I matter greatly to my girlfriend and | my cats. | | Your neighborhood - A little bit, my neighbors seem to like me | and probably appreciate that I'm courteous. | | Your city - A tiny amount, my taxes help pay for stuff I guess. | | The planet - A very tiny amount, I contribute to society and | that counts for something. | | The universe - I'm a spec of dust in an endless void. My | existence is meaningless. | | My hypothesis is that intelligent people are attracted to | larger spaces, but larger spaces tend to be more depressing and | meaningless. On the other hand, a less intelligent person might | only think about what's immediately around them, they are more | present in the moment. This also helps explain why meditation | can be helpful, it's practice for shrinking your mental space. | boffinism wrote: | > How do you nudge yourself in that direction on a perpetual | basis, as opposed to visiting it by stunning your mind into | submission and silence? > >Subscribe to Naval | | Not sure if this was deliberate, but I'd love to know the | conversion rate of this CTA. | ghoomketu wrote: | Happiness' biggest killer is thinking about the future / dwelling | on the past. I think smart people do this a lot more, which may | explain the correlation. | | From Buddha to Eckhart Tolle almost every book and teaching about | happiness boils down to living in the present. But I guess it's | much easier said than done because our minds like to wander | (evolution to anticipate dangers perhaps?) and living in the | present is like keeping your balance on a stationary bicycle with | gravity always working against you. | | But fwiw we do get glimpses of true happiness say when you're | like in the zone and totally immersed in the task at hand that | you're thinking of nothing else and just happy (doing what you're | doing). | dmje wrote: | You're right about the present moment stuff - but I'm not | convinced smart people necessarily think more about past or | future. If you're down on your luck, not very bright, working a | shitty job for not much pay, you're probably thinking really | hard about future logistics / rent / living conditions, no? | dijit wrote: | There is a strong negative correlation observed in all cultures | of intelligence and happiness. | | The more intelligent you are the _less likely_ you are to be | happy. | | This is most extremely observed in the case of the 14 year old | child prodigy who committed suicide despite no pressure from his | parents to succeed: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/19/us/one- | shot-ends-the-life... | dlsa wrote: | No pressure? There's the pressure right there in that word | _prodigy_. That 's enough pressure. Everything the kid does is | an example of _what a prodigy does_. Oh the prodigy is writing | a story! Must be great! The prodigy is playing sport! He 'll be | an expert for sure! No? Well then he's not such a prodigy after | all! Haha the prodigy tripped over that step! Can't even walk! | | I can easily see all this creating enough pressure to crush | someone sooner rather than later. Its a form of perfectionism. | But not so much from aiming at perfection itself but having it | expected and compelled upon you. People will want to use you if | you do well and distance themselves the moment things get | tough. | | The weight of the mind games around that must be horrendous. | Expectations would attach like mosquitoes. The price of fame. | Even in a micro-version its annoying and draining. Its probably | also why very famous people all solve this with giant little- | worlds they create called mansions. A world within a world. Its | the luxury of having enough space so you can be a special sort | of anonymous in that vast space again. Maybe. The other reason | is that mansions are status symbols and having the better one | is always better. | Trasmatta wrote: | Hah, joke's on you! I'm dumb AND unhappy. | jcal93 wrote: | I find this really interesting, and definitely sad. I wonder if | it's because as people become more educated, they understand | (or at least perceive) that their individual life is | insignificant when contrasted against the great big universe of | things and beings, and this results in deep and profound | unhappiness. | sidlls wrote: | It's (also) more mundane than that. Think about those minor | annoyances one has with their partner in a relationship | (friendship, romantic, doesn't matter--everyone has something | they could pick nits about in their friends, spouses, etc.). | | Now consider them to be multiplied and magnified by virtue of | being literally one or more steps ahead, so to speak, in | thinking about...anything. From an approach to doing chores, | to planning recreational activities, to supposedly "higher | minded" things (e.g. politics, philosophy, whatever), you | name it: the smarter one is, the more likely there is | friction in these everyday interactions by virtue of the fact | that more and more of one's peers is simply not able to keep | up as it were. Not to mention the same is true of other less | mundane issues (politics, finance, etc.). | NeuNeurosis wrote: | Wow well said. I think this is the real core of the issue. | I have experienced this since I can remember and people | would get mad at me as a child for explaining how something | worked or how to look at something from a different | perspective. I struggle with sharing my understanding about | anything due to the depth of explaining I have to do for | people to understand why I arrived at my conclusion. One | thing I have found helps as I get older is to let go of the | feeling of importance of things going a certain way. I can | now live with small mistakes and misunderstandings way | better than when I was young. | [deleted] | emodendroket wrote: | Now, sure, you might attribute that to being so smart. But | graduating from high school at 10 would totally stunt your | social development. His parents reject that idea but I am less | than persuaded. | [deleted] | e1g wrote: | I've seen studies [1][2] showing positive relationships between | happiness and intelligence. Do you have a source saying the | correlation is negative? | | [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22998852/ [2] | https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJHD.2012... | geek_at wrote: | Interesting points but I think it basically doesn't come down to | intelligence but rather 1) Do you like what you do for a living | 2) Are you happy with the life you have outside the workplace | | If one of these are chaotic, the other one can't keep you happy | for long | alar44 wrote: | Yes and yes. | | If you think that's all you need to be happy, you're mistaken. | Got a promotion a few months ago. Great title. Love the job. | Massive raise in pay. After about two days I sunk into a | depression because it literally didn't change anything in my | life. | | "Great. I am a success. Now what?" | jsonne wrote: | The hedonistic treadmill is real. Happiness has to come from | within. | JamesAdir wrote: | This is from 2020. The title should be fixed. | wenbin wrote: | I've been happier since I started working on my own business full | time. The key is to be able to control my own time. | | If you can figure out a way to be able to control your time as | much as possible, you'll likely be happy. | | What people really want is not infinite amount of money. It's | actually ~100% control of their own time . | deltaonefour wrote: | Stupid people are happier then smart people. | | Look at kids. Kids are generally stupider than adults. They're | also happier. So if anything that proves that being smart does | not make you happy and it hints at the possibility that being | stupid actually makes you happy. | np- wrote: | To be pedantic, an equally valid conclusion is that | intelligence and happiness are independent variables with no | connection, not necessarily that there is an inverse | correlation. | deltaonefour wrote: | There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path. | erikbye wrote: | I might be less happy than some other people, because I tend to | overthink things and spend a lot of time "in my head", but I am | at _my_ most happy when I work (on things I care about), when I | engage with that inner drive to explore and create. | | Flow or (focus mode) is my "ignorance is bliss" equivalent. | BoumTAC wrote: | I think it's a lot about very intelligent people have a lot of | potential and can't develop and use it at full capacity to | improve the world. So they have a meaningless feeling of their | life. | teucris wrote: | I think that's half of it. The other half is recognizing just | how hard it is to actually improve the world in a way that | doesn't introduce negative externalities or other unintended | consequences. | giantg2 wrote: | "Generally, the more intelligent you are, the more you can see | behind the facade of everyday life being easy or safe." | | There are different types of intelligence. Some people are smart | and happy because they don't think about how unsafe the | world/situation/etc is. Also possible that people adopt a mindset | that embraces risk. | ianai wrote: | Odd discussion. I think happiness is much simpler but perhaps | deeper than they're alluding to here. There's a bit to happiness | which is immediate - a factor of the present. There's longer term | happiness, but there's something of a discount function to | happiness in the future or past to the present. (This will vary | person to person.) | | Fundamentally, happiness is about desires/expectations meeting | reality in agreement. | | A human's also a complex being capable of being happy about some | things while upset/angry about others and so on. A human also | ages, so definitely happiness means something different across | those ages. A new born baby, for instance, will largely use cries | to communicate more than adult, for I hope obvious reasons. But | the takeaway, I think, is that happiness is when expectations or | needs are met by reality. | | Anyway, I refute this claim that "smarts" have some inherent | relationship to how much happiness a person should have for the | above reasons. Happiness is a feeling. "Smarts" is probably how | efficient your brain is at using the accumulated facts within it. | Quite obviously, those are independent things. | yesbut wrote: | Happiness and anger are extremes. The goal in life should be | contentment. | CyanBird wrote: | Very much agreed, that and thankfulness or a variation thereof | amelius wrote: | My personal theory: intelligent people might become more | interested in the internal world than the external world. But | they are still emotionally and physically connected to that | external world, so there is a feeling of not belonging here. | | In other words, intelligent people might become addicted to | thinking. Meaning that the rest of their life suffers. For | example, intelligent people might be more interested in solving | tough problems, ignoring the business side, talking to people, | making money and building a normal life. | fleddr wrote: | Exactly, some people think so much that they basically live in | their heads, most things outside of it considered | uninteresting. | | For example, they may see two people having diner and | discussing their recent holiday and the TV show they watched | last night. To the thinker, this is all incredibly unimportant, | mundane and boring. Yet those two people had a good time, the | thinker not so much. | | Thinkers also over-think, are risk averse and always worried. | They may understand that the financial system is due for | another crash, that war is about to break out, polarization | increasing, and all kinds of bad things trending in the wrong | direction. | | This superior understanding leads to misery compared to just | being ignorant about it. | | Thinkers are frustrated by media and social media catering to | the non-thinkers. All this effort the thinker went through to | get a deep understanding seems just pissed away, irrelevant. | | Thinking is overrated. The human brain is an advanced defensive | device. It's job isn't to think for the sake of it, it's job is | to keep you alive. Most of the things it's feeding you isn't | even true. It doesn't have to be. | AussieWog93 wrote: | Is intelligence correlated with happiness? If there is a | correlation, would it be nonlinear? | | Some of the most miserable folk I've met are genuinely stupid | people whose every endeavour fails. | emodendroket wrote: | Pretty slight article. | | In my opinion, of course things are going to happen that are | beyond your control, but on an everyday basis, being happy or | unhappy is a choice. You can choose to dwell on negative thoughts | or you can choose to dwell on positive ones. | jsonne wrote: | This is a really short excerpt. Is there a longer/complete | version out there or is it simply meant to pose the question but | not give an answer? | monster_group wrote: | There is actually a good book with the exact same title. | | https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Smart-Why-Arent-Happy/dp/B01DYF... | seibelj wrote: | I've noticed that smarter people are more likely to reject | "traditional" things - religion, family, having roots in a home | base, community things, etc. They also tend to be "terminally | online" i.e. having a very rich and sustaining existence in | digital spheres rather than the real world. | | It is entirely possible to have a fulfilling and happy life | rejecting traditional human things and embracing virtual things. | It's just significantly harder. | ruined wrote: | seriously, does anyone know even one person who's happy | [deleted] | CyanBird wrote: | Hey, I am smart and I am happy | | But in honestly I believe this to be a case where intelligence | which is not pruned and cared for correctly like a bonsai tree | will lead you to dark paths | | To educate oneself in how the world works, why violence is used, | what's the global context of things and understanding that this | is a matter of systems pinging against each other will go a long | way | | It is sort of better angels of out nature but without the deluded | liberalism than pinkers book had | | As recommendations read Bismark biographies and life, Kissinger, | theucydides (my favorite passage is the Melos debate) , Mark | fisher, nick land, Marcus Aurelius, confusius, vedas, Adam curtis | | I feel that the most important thing that one can do, is to take | good care of one's mental ecology, and that first comes with | taking care of the mental-soil where your ideas will sprout from, | learn from the errors of others, we have lots of past wise people | whom have made a lot of errors in the past (or things that they | thought of errors but weren't so!!), learn from that | | The world is rough, don't take it personal because it is not, you | are just a tiny spec whom might have happened to land in a | specific time and place, be grateful of having been born where | you have and not as a poor peasant during the 30 years war or | wherever | | Anyhow have a nice evening guys | otikik wrote: | Intelligence is multidimensional. You can be a great mental | calculator and at the same time have a very hard time memorizing | random data, or learning new languages. | | The capacity to be happy, or to become happy, involves several of | those dimensions. Which dimensions exactly, depend on your | circumstances. | | One I think is important for everyone is not about being "aware | of the state of the world", like the OP says. On the contrary, | it's self-awareness: knowing what's going on inside your own | head. | goethes_kind wrote: | I can compare myself to my ex-girlfriend. We both face problems | in life, but she is more consistently happy than I am. I think | the main reason is that I was always more ambitions, and more | eager to take risks, and this lead to quite drastic changes in my | life. Which were good for my career, but which destroyed my | social life in the process. Also I abandoned all other interests | I had such as hobbies or sports, to single mindedly pursue my | goals. My ex on the other hand has consistently worked on | building an ever expanding social circle. She is not so ambition | and spends considerably more time tending to her social circle. | And when she is alone she has her hobbies that she has been | cultivating over many years. At the end of the day, I go to sleep | thinking about the day when everything will turn out great and I | will be happy. And she goes to sleep with fresh memories of her | amazing day out with her friends. Of course she's happier. | | It's not some big mystery. It's just that nerds like me tend to | neglect to tend to the simple but important aspects of life. Now | at 30, I'm starting the hard process of trying to build some | semblance of a normal life, after all but abandoning my | ambitions. | TrainedMonkey wrote: | This reminded me of an old anecdote: | https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/6ft98c/conversation_... | | Personally it had pretty large impact on me around 2018 or so. | I put more effort into paying attention of what makes me happy | and then doing those things. Pretty content with life right | now. | pen2l wrote: | Oh man, I'd literally been looking for this for so long, very | glad to have rediscovered it. | | Separately, in the spirit of debate, I'm happy to see the | comment made by 'takes_joke_literally (meme account as it may | be) actually give a strong response: the fisherman was living | a day-to-day's income and perhaps wasn't in a good position | to take life's unwelcome surprises. | iJohnDoe wrote: | Sounds like you're justifying your actions. | extraAccount wrote: | I think this is the most applicable case for most of us really. | In my free-time I think of what better things I could be doing | or working on, reading the news, new technologies, working or | studying for my masters degree. Not exactly friend-making | activities or memorable ones that you will think fondly of in | the future. When I think back, its all a big blur of being all | by myself, with a few actual memorable moments with people | sprinkled in it. | | I compare myself to my brother, we both graduated and started | our working lives. When I wake up in the weekend, all I can | think about is all the work I need to do. When he wakes up, all | he thinks about is going out, hiking, meeting new people. I | think we are just wired that way. | largbae wrote: | This is what actually separates humans from animals: Humans are | capable of being dissatisfied with _any_ situation, no matter how | favorable. | loves_mangoes wrote: | The problem I'm having, dear reader, is that I don't understand | why I seem to be _the only_ happy person on the Internet. My | twitter feed collectively has depression. Hacker News is a crowd | that seems to feel okay on the best of days, when it doesn 't | realize it has burnout. | | I feel a little better than neutral when I'm at baseline. On most | days, I don't need a reason to smile. I just like to smile | because things are good. I didn't sprinkle this post with happy | smileys to illustrate my point (for your sake!) but I would have | if I were writing to myself. | | I wish I could help other people. The point of this is not "look | at me my life is great". I just don't know what to do. | Sebb767 wrote: | I'm mostly happy, so that's two of us :) | | In general, being happy is probably not something you talk | about too much - it's the "normal" state of being and talking | too much about it makes you look like you're either bragging or | trying to sell your two week seminar. In that regard, it's a | bit like money - if you have enough, you don't talk about it | much unless you get really lucky (sell company, win lottery | etc), but if you're lacking it, it's on your mind all the time. | loves_mangoes wrote: | Glad to hear it :) | | I think you're right in general that there's usually no point | acknowledging good things, there's no lesson to learn or | corrective action to take from things being good -- that's | just the expected state. | | What bothers me is I see people constantly talk about | happiness like something you chase all your life, some | unattainable goal that only an old sage that spent decades | meditating would know anything about. Like it's a mythical | thing, not the 'normal state of being', as you said. | | I'd really like to understand what went wrong that so many | people aren't feeling the way you and me would say is | normal/neutral. I've started learning psychology just to | understand better, but I don't know that there's anything | concrete I can do to help anyone. That sort of sucks. | WJW wrote: | I'll join in, so that we can be a crowd of three! :) | | Definitely agree that it is not really on my mind all the | time though. It is like money or oxygen that way, you only | really notice when you don't have it. That might explain | why we only hear about unhappy people online; the happy | people simply don't post about it as much. I'll also add | the insight from Epicurus that many people are confused | about what brings about happiness: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_47J6sy3A. | [deleted] | Sebb767 wrote: | > Like everything else, there is some truth to this. Generally, | the more intelligent you are, the more you can see behind the | facade of everyday life being easy or safe. You see all the risks | and downsides--the calamities that await us. | | Maybe it's just me, but when I read something like this I just | think of a teenager trying to be edgy. Less intelligent people | (assuming they're still at a functional IQ) can just as much get | a depressed view on society or live. They're actually at a | disadvantage, since they're most likely in a less paying position | and have less options to change something. | | Now, I can also see the counter-point that being smart puts a bit | of pressure on you to actually archive something and it's easy to | feel like you wasted yourself. But having a massively bad view on | society summarized by a few sentences does not mean you're smart, | and neither does excessive cynicism - at least to me it just | seems like someone is desperately trying to look smart. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-12 23:00 UTC)