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Dr. Bik Kwoon Tye could be a poster child for Dr. Seligman's work in the field of positive psychology! This story reminds me so much of a book I just finished r

Dr. Bik Kwoon Tye could be a poster child for Dr. Seligman's work in the field of positive psychology! This story reminds me so much of a book I just finished reading: The Happiness Advantage. "Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around."

TaylorAlexander 7y ago
God I tortured myself growing up thinking that once I achieved the next big goal I would “be happy”. I don’t know why it took me 30+ years to realize that state was never achieved, I just have to be happy now without waiting for it to happen to me.
- rwnspace 7y ago
  I wonder if it took 30+ years because your young adult brain was geared toward perceiving 'carrots and sticks'.
  - bleepcord 7y ago
    How would a young adult go about breaking this perception?
    - rwnspace 7y ago
      I don't know, and I'm not sure it's a good idea. I think it's a feature, not a bug, though it has very clear downsides, which you can take steps to ameliorate. Talking of steps: Walking and talking are pretty ancient ways of taking stock and finding new perspectives. Talk to people outside your usual age range and social class. Get out into nature. These things usually help in ways I can't explain very well, but I find them vital to sustainably integrating who I am in here with where I am in the world. In my experience, major health crises of the mental kind tend to be down to this.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Does it? A lot of the people I know who've accomplished significant things did so not because they were happy, but because they tried harder than anyone else. They were not satisfied with the way things were and put a lot of effort into changing them. I myself didn't lose half my bodyweight because I was happy, quite the contrary, I hated --and still hate-- my body. That kind of motivation is incredibly helpful for overcoming the suffering required to accomplish big things. Success will not make you happy, this my experience agrees with, but I'm equally sure that happiness will not make one successful.
- brmgb 7y ago
  > Success will not make you happy, this my experience agrees with, but I'm equally sure that happiness will not make one successful. Well, if you allow me, what does being successful actually mean ? What is the point of your definition of successful if it doesn't make you happy ?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    Success is simply accomplishing things you set out to accomplish, I guess.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  They say a journey of 10,000 steps starts with a single step. And then you have a journey of 9,999 steps, which starts with a single step. That is, there's never a time when you take 10,000 steps in one go, or when you do an entire journey in one go, the whole journey ends with a single step as well. Given that the entire journey is single steps, if you take one step and then beat yourself up because one step is nothing, and tell yourself how much of a loser you are for only moving one step, and how other would people disapprove .. that makes the entire journey thousands of steps where you beat yourself up because each step isn't enough. How are you going to face, and endure, such a miserable journey? By contrast, if each step is a rewarding piece of progress, which you cheer yourself on for, then (in a recursive sense), the entire journey ahead of you unfolds into thousands of rewarding, cheerful pieces of progress encouraging you forwards. I myself didn't lose half my bodyweight because I was happy, quite the contrary, I hated --and still hate-- my body. You've worked hard to go from self-hate to self-hate, through thousands of steps each full of self-hate. What kind of progress is that, really? What kind of life is that? In a fraction of the time and effort you could have gone from self-hate to self-approval, without changing anything except thoughts and without doing anything except thinking. I'm equally sure that happiness will not make one successful. If you were happy being fat, what use would you have for "success"? What if you die half way through the journey and never reach the end - is success a goal that only exists at one point in time, and if you don't live long enough, you can't have it? Why not feel happy and successful at every moment of calorie counting, grateful at having the opportunity to buy chicken and salad instead of fried chicken and gravy, happy at the scenery around you when you go out to exercise, instead of filling each moment with self-hate and bitterness and what have you? If every moment you play a tune, you hate how badly you play, and it drives you to play more precisely, but you hate playing and feel bad afterwards, are you better off or worse off than someone who plays imprecisely, but loves every moment they play and can't wait to play more and feels better afterwards?

TaylorAlexander 7y ago

God I tortured myself growing up thinking that once I achieved the next big goal I would “be happy”. I don’t know why it took me 30+ years to realize that state was never achieved, I just have to be happy now without waiting for it to happen to me.

rwnspace 7y ago
I wonder if it took 30+ years because your young adult brain was geared toward perceiving 'carrots and sticks'.
- bleepcord 7y ago
  How would a young adult go about breaking this perception?
  - rwnspace 7y ago
    I don't know, and I'm not sure it's a good idea. I think it's a feature, not a bug, though it has very clear downsides, which you can take steps to ameliorate. Talking of steps: Walking and talking are pretty ancient ways of taking stock and finding new perspectives. Talk to people outside your usual age range and social class. Get out into nature. These things usually help in ways I can't explain very well, but I find them vital to sustainably integrating who I am in here with where I am in the world. In my experience, major health crises of the mental kind tend to be down to this.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

Does it? A lot of the people I know who've accomplished significant things did so not because they were happy, but because they tried harder than anyone else. They were not satisfied with the way things were and put a lot of effort into changing them. I myself didn't lose half my bodyweight because I was happy, quite the contrary, I hated --and still hate-- my body. That kind of motivation is incredibly helpful for overcoming the suffering required to accomplish big things. Success will not make you happy, this my experience agrees with, but I'm equally sure that happiness will not make one successful.

brmgb 7y ago
> Success will not make you happy, this my experience agrees with, but I'm equally sure that happiness will not make one successful. Well, if you allow me, what does being successful actually mean ? What is the point of your definition of successful if it doesn't make you happy ?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Success is simply accomplishing things you set out to accomplish, I guess.
jodrellblank 7y ago
They say a journey of 10,000 steps starts with a single step. And then you have a journey of 9,999 steps, which starts with a single step. That is, there's never a time when you take 10,000 steps in one go, or when you do an entire journey in one go, the whole journey ends with a single step as well. Given that the entire journey is single steps, if you take one step and then beat yourself up because one step is nothing, and tell yourself how much of a loser you are for only moving one step, and how other would people disapprove .. that makes the entire journey thousands of steps where you beat yourself up because each step isn't enough. How are you going to face, and endure, such a miserable journey? By contrast, if each step is a rewarding piece of progress, which you cheer yourself on for, then (in a recursive sense), the entire journey ahead of you unfolds into thousands of rewarding, cheerful pieces of progress encouraging you forwards. I myself didn't lose half my bodyweight because I was happy, quite the contrary, I hated --and still hate-- my body. You've worked hard to go from self-hate to self-hate, through thousands of steps each full of self-hate. What kind of progress is that, really? What kind of life is that? In a fraction of the time and effort you could have gone from self-hate to self-approval, without changing anything except thoughts and without doing anything except thinking. I'm equally sure that happiness will not make one successful. If you were happy being fat, what use would you have for "success"? What if you die half way through the journey and never reach the end - is success a goal that only exists at one point in time, and if you don't live long enough, you can't have it? Why not feel happy and successful at every moment of calorie counting, grateful at having the opportunity to buy chicken and salad instead of fried chicken and gravy, happy at the scenery around you when you go out to exercise, instead of filling each moment with self-hate and bitterness and what have you? If every moment you play a tune, you hate how badly you play, and it drives you to play more precisely, but you hate playing and feel bad afterwards, are you better off or worse off than someone who plays imprecisely, but loves every moment they play and can't wait to play more and feels better afterwards?