5 ms·

It is not important to work hard, it is important to be happy. Stop glorifying the act of working, please.

• secondbreakfast 6y ago
  Do you think the two are causally related? (Either positively correlated or negatively correlated?)
  • fs111 6y ago
    They may or may not. Many people are happy when spending time with loved ones. You can live a happy life and never work "hard". Just do your job and be happy. There is nothing wrong with tbat.
  • JackFr 6y ago
    Some people are lucky enough to find meaning in their work. That is a luxury. Many people need to work to live and will happily find meaning in other facets of their lives. But people shouldn’t believe that work is the only sort meaningful activity in life.
• beaconstudios 6y ago
  you can work hard at a hobby, or fitness, or many other areas that aren't commercial.
• bonoboTP 6y ago
  Happiness may be your ultimate goal (or did you pick it up from pop culture and movies?), and it's far from universal across people, cultures and eras (unless you define happiness in an extremely general, tautological sense of whatever one strives for). For many people it is attaining meaning, being and being seen as competent and useful, it is obtaining power or sacrificing oneself for an idea or their family. If you say that's all forms of happiness, then again that definition is pretty empty then.
• Aeolun 6y ago
  Working hard makes me happy.
• wegs 6y ago
  To me, a lifelong search for happiness seems flawed and ephemeral. It's culturally very American, but doesn't seem to lead to happiness. I strive for purpose, meaning, and positive impact. When I succeed, I'm happy. That drives how I pick my job and how I run my family life. The Frankl book "Man's Search for Meaning" makes a good case for this as a life goal. I'm not going to my categorical statements like yours. But in my life philosophy, it's not so much important to be happy, as to be a good person and to have a fulfilling life. But if other people have other values -- glorifying working hard for example -- it's important to respect that too.
  • 4ist 6y ago
    This is something I was thinking about lately. I think having the goal of being "not-unhappy" is more personally viable than aiming at happiness. In the past when I was seeking happiness I would just smoke weed and play videogames all day, which felt good at the time but the day after I would feel like trash because I wasted so much time/energy and typically ate straight garbage.
    • hdni 6y ago
      Anna Karenina principle: happiness is the absence of all the things in the set of things that make you unhappy
  • aurbano 6y ago
    Maybe it's just the wording we use, but when you say "But in my life philosophy, it's not so much important to be happy, as to be a good person and to have a fulfilling life." Doesn't that mean that being a good person and having a fulfilling life is what makes _you_ happy? This is something I think a lot about, and I know this is a philosophical topic that has been around for ever, but how do we call the state in which we're "ok" with our life? In your case the mental state when you believe that you're being a good person and having a fulfilling life? Is that happiness? Or is happiness a by-product of that state? I believe this is what Aristotle called achieving virtue, maybe, it's been a while since I studied philosophy...
    • 6y ago
• ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
  Working makes a lot of people happy. Stop glorifying your preferences and pop wisdom.
• ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  My happiness requires capital to implement and gaining capital requires working hard. I'm fortunate that I'm able to work hard in a career and field that also brings me happiness, so that's a bonus.
• tengbretson 6y ago
  > It is not important to work hard, it is important to be happy There's a reason that none of the major religions or ancient philosophers share this outlook. It's because a society that elevates the personal happiness of the individual above all else necessarily becomes self destructive.
  • danans 6y ago
    > none of the major religions or ancient philosophers share this outlook. That's because the major religions of history, especially the major organized religions, are part and parcel with their adjacent governmental power structure, and basically share it's interests, which mostly have to do with extracting value from the populace. Plenty of philosophers, however, have spoken counter to this, from the Epicurians, to the Lokayatas, to Omar Khayyam.
• adrianmonk 6y ago
  It is debatable whether hard work should be an end unto itself. Certainly you shouldn't idolize hard work uncritically because, for example, someone told you that you are a worthless person if you don't work as hard as possible at everything. (I definitely think there are people who were psychologically programmed this way and never question it.) However, there are many things which are important and which require hard work. Cultivating the discipline of hard work can thus be indirectly beneficial in a lot of ways. And it's a sign as well: if you rarely find yourself doing hard work, then unless your life is exceptionally easy, you're probably missing out on something important. And since hard work is a necessity, it's preferable to come to terms with it and develop the ability to enjoy it rather than hating it. For that it helps to draw satisfaction from doing it, which isn't quite the same thing as glorification, but it's still a way of putting it in a positive light. Ultimately, if you define your own goals and do things for your own reasons, then hard work can fit in well with that. Just make sure your hard work is serving you instead of you serving hard work.