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Derek Sivers' Happy, Smart, Useful–Are You Doing This?
I'm a big fan of Derek Sivers, and his simple idea of 'Happy, Smart, Useful' when making big life/career decisions makes total sense to me.
But I'm wondering: is anyone else out there making this concept work? And more importantly: how did you go about finding what's 'useful to others' and where it overlapped with your 'happy' and 'smart'?
Here's the link to the (short) explanation by Sivers:
https://sivers.org/hsu
- sethammons 7y agoNever heard of it before, but makes general sense. I've not tried to frame things in that venn diagram, but I've done pros/cons lists. The one that I'm not sure on is "happy." I don't look at happiness as something extrinsic - things, people, etc don't make one happy. Happy is an outlook, a choice. A whole post can be written on happiness. My tl;dr is that older folks who describe themselves as happy say it is a choice. There are rich and able bodied people who are miserable. There are poor and disabled people who are happy. Happy is the lens through which you use to view life. My goal with any decision is to make the "best" decision I can given the information I have, and if I do so, I have no reason to ever regret any choice I've made. This diagram you bring up is just a way to help someone figure out what "best" means. I prioritize family well being, personal well being, financial health, and then community. I'm sure there are some things I'm not considering right now as this is all off the top of my head. Examples of not regretting choices. I pulled out some stocks that later doubled in value. I technically missed out on literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't sweat it at all. I made the best choice given the info I had. The stocks could have gone down too. I've made bad purchases, I've said the wrong things, I've made mistakes at work, I took the wrong classes, I've hurt myself, I've set myself backwards months or years on health or projects. I've done lots of things that many others would regret. I don't regret any of it because I made the best decisions I could at the time given the information I had. This is not to say I don't have a few things I would have liked to have worked out differently, but I do not dwell on things I cannot change. I link this also to worrying: if you can't do anything about something, don't worry. If you can, then do (or don't), and don't worry.
- photawe 7y agoReading about this was actually cool! I guess validating an idea and creating a good product can certainly count (clearly, much easier said than done). Or, finding a company that does good, and going to work there.