12 ms·

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy?

144 points by sandes 5y ago

cryptica 5y ago
Being smart isn't enough to be happy. You also need a sense of freedom and purpose. If you're out of touch with yourself and aren't free, you will not find a genuine purpose in your life; your whole life will be about channeling the will of those who have power over you.
dijit 5y ago
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-of-a-prodigy-who-appeared-to-be-ordinary.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/19/us/one-shot-ends-the-life...
- jcal93 5y ago
  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.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    I think it is more that one has the ability to see "the man behind the curtain", and at how badly the deck is stacked against you for most things. Seeing and hearing the lies promulgated absolutely everywhere and knowing they are so where others do not.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      What I don’t get is what keeps people around who have “seen the man behind the curtain”, and know enough to suffer from knowing.
  - sidlls 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.
      - MonaroVXR 5y ago
        I have the complete opposite experience right now and it's killing me. Even with dating. Gotta explain why I do this or that. Because bit it's contradictory in their eyes Any advice?
        NeuNeurosis 5y ago
        Interesting, without context its pretty difficult to offer advice. From your comment, and I'm reaching here, you might not have a great awareness of how your actions/choices are perceived by others before you make them. You seem to in hindsight, which is great. Also it could be the stage of life you are in where the people you are surrounded by are still exploring options of how to live and are curious when they see someone make choices outside their realm or expectation. In either case it comes down to how much you want them to understand your what and why. I have really tried hard at accepting that most others are not going to see why I make my choices so what is the point of explaining any of them. This is all conditional on who it is and how much I love them but it is a constant in my thought process. Letting go of the need for people to understand your motivations is liberating, when you can achieve it. :) I hope this helps.
- deleted 5y ago
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- emodendroket 5y ago
  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.
  - bruce343434 5y ago
    How can you possibly connect to your peers when you have forgotten more than they will ever know? They have nothing to offer you. Every interaction predictable and boring. It must be supremely lonely being the odd one out.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      I will tell you what. He probably would have liked to have a girlfriend more than to hang around a bunch of kids in their early twenties treating him like their baby brother, no matter how smart he was. It seems like a very narrow notion of the value of relationships with others if you think that any interaction where you’re not being intellectually challenged is worthless.
      - bruce343434 5y ago
        I can tell you form experience having a significant other with a sufficient "gap" gets very demoralizing and frustrating. That, or I just can't appreciate what I have.
        emodendroket 5y ago
        That can be frustrating, but the kind of isolation you'd get being a young kid in a college milieu would be much worse. The story goes that Nick the Greek introduced Albert Einstein to his gambling buddies as "Little Al from Princeton," who "controls a lot of the action around Jersey." I've always aspired to be able to move between worlds with that kind of grace.
- deleted 5y ago
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- e1g 5y ago
  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/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22998852/ [2] https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJHD.2012.050808 https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJHD.2012...
- dlsa 5y ago
  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.
  - booboofixer 5y ago
    I have nothing to add to this so I'm sorry for commenting if i shouldn't. But thank you for writing this because i felt a little insane looking at the world around me and coming to some of the same conclusions as you have arrived at, that result from treating people a certain way. I'm not sure why most other people don't seem to get this.
- Trasmatta 5y ago
  Hah, joke's on you! I'm dumb AND unhappy.
- erikbye 5y ago
  No surprise there. Both my cat and dog seem happier than me, and I hope they are less intelligent.
- radu_floricica 5y ago
  That's a myth. Intelligence is correlated with quite a lot of things which promote happiness. There are already sources in the thread, so I'll just mention a couple factors: education/work/money, and late marriage/kids. Believe it or not, but not living close to minimum wage and having children only when married and you can afford them are both huge factors of a happy life. Huge. And both are very correlated with intelligence. Now, why is this myth so widespread? Tbh, I don't really know. I can guess at availability heuristic - smart people see mostly themselves and smart people around them, see that the happiness level isn't that great, especially when young, imagine everybody else is happier so it's a reasonable conclusion that being smart is bad. The problems with this logic are that less smart/poorer people have it a lot worse, but they don't have contact with them. And also that extra education will indeed delay your earning years somewhat, so being young, not-yet-earning and smart does feel pretty bad.
geek_at 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    The hedonistic treadmill is real. Happiness has to come from within.
- pingeroo 5y ago
  Some more questions to add to this list: 1) Are you short of food or water 2) Are you or your loved ones in constant fear of being enslaved and/or blown to bits 3) Has there been a systematic effort to drive out your culture and replace it with another I could go on but I think I've made my point. So many people today live in what could only be described as hell. Sitting in the western world with our cushy lives, regardless of how many headlines we read about war, famine, rape and death, it just doesn't really matter to us. It's not our world and it's not our problem. If only we could see things from their perspective. If only we could feel their suffering the way they do, I don't think we could be unhappy for a day in our lives. But as humans naturally we are never satisfied with where we are and what we have. We always want more. Even when we have enough to eat, we want more. Even when we are surrounded by people who love us, we want more. Even when we have money, we want more. In many ways I suppose this is both a blessing and a curse. The constant desire to make things better, faster, stronger, and never being satisfied with what we have is what fuels us. Without it we would not have made all the astounding innovations that, to an observer from the past, could only be characterized as magic.
BoumTAC 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.
ianai 5y ago
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 5y ago
Happiness and anger are extremes. The goal in life should be contentment.
- CyanBird 5y ago
  Very much agreed, that and thankfulness or a variation thereof
amelius 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.
emodendroket 5y ago
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 5y ago
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 5y ago
There is actually a good book with the exact same title. https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Smart-Why-Arent-Happy/dp/B01DYFUVRO/ https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Smart-Why-Arent-Happy/dp/B01DYF...
seibelj 5y ago
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.
- deleted 5y ago
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ruined 5y ago
seriously, does anyone know even one person who's happy
deleted 5y ago
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CyanBird 5y ago
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 5y ago
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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  This reminded me of an old anecdote: https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/6ft98c/conversation_between_a_fisherman_and_an_mba/ 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 5y ago
    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.
    - bittercynic 5y ago
      I really appreciate the sentiment, and think I would like to live the suburban version of that life. With some luck, and by maintaining thrifty habits, I think some semblance of that life is within reach for a good fraction of the population today.
largbae 5y ago
This is what actually separates humans from animals: Humans are capable of being dissatisfied with _any_ situation, no matter how favorable.
loves_mangoes 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_47J6sy3A.
Sebb767 5y ago
> Like everything else, there is some truth to this. Generally, the more intelligent you are, the more you can see behind the façade 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.
- andrewjl 5y ago
  Why is the quoted passage cynical and not simply prudent?
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    That was actually referring to the rest of the paragraph: > You see the cynicism and manipulation behind so many things portrayed as being good for you or society. You become cynical, and you signal your intelligence through cynicism. Very smart people often communicate in purely cynical observations. I didn't want to include the whole quote since I mostly responded to the quoted part and the quote would get quite long overall.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    Seeing all the bullshit and deciding to be cynical and do nothing is intellectually lazy and defeatist, which is the sort of short-sighted and lack of awareness a teenager would do instead of a more prudent adult.
    - bruce343434 5y ago
      I'm asking this in good faith because I am that "edgy teenager": what would the more prudent adult do?
keiferski 5y ago
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.
- pingeroo 5y ago
  I wouldn't say it's a short term state. At least personally, I can pause at any point in the day and think "am I happy", to which the answer is usually yes. Of course there are peaks and valleys, which as you described, are usually short bursts of emotion — like when you listen to your favorite song or see your best friend. But I think happiness also exists at a more baseline level when you are just... content in being.
ghoomketu 5y ago
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 5y ago
Both success and satisfaction are more valuable to me than happiness.
- alimov 5y ago
  So success and satisfaction are not the things that keep you feeling good/happy? I don’t understand what you mean to say.
  - m0llusk 5y ago
    No, I'm angry most of the time and don't really have a problem with that. Having accomplished significant goals makes me feel this time I have spent living is worth the oxygen I have consumed.
JamesAdir 5y ago
This is from 2020. The title should be fixed.
dejj 5y ago
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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  > 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 https://youtu.be/Q6wmIehW6EM?list=LL&t=47
- serverholic 5y ago
  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, and as a result 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 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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?
erikbye 5y ago
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.
giantg2 5y ago
"Generally, the more intelligent you are, the more you can see behind the façade 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.
wenbin 5y ago
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 .
- jasperry 5y ago
  I hear you, I'm always thinking about how to get more control over my time. But I also think nobody can be happy without some amount of good vibes from other people, and you can never control that 100%. You just have to put yourself in positions where it can happen, and that involves giving up some control.
deltaonefour 5y ago
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- 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    Read carefully what I wrote. >So if anything that proves that being smart does not make you happy This means, in your words "no correlation" of higher intelligence and happiness. >and it hints at the possibility that being stupid actually makes you happy. This means the possibility of lower intelligence and happiness. I was very careful with my words.
    - np- 5y ago
      >So if anything that proves that being smart does not make you happy That’s because one anecdote doesn’t “prove” anything regardless if one says the word “prove” or not. You got one datapoint and you extrapolated negatively from that—all I am saying is there is an equally valid conclusion that can be drawn from the anecdote. I.e I could also say that since children seem happier, that “proves” that it’s being short and loud makes you happier.
      - deltaonefour 5y ago
        You don't understand science. And you did not read my sentences carefully. In science nothing can be proved. But all it takes.is one data point to disprove something. I hypothesize that all zebras have black and white stripes. This hypothesis can never be proved no matter how many zebras we observe. But all it takes is the observation of one zebra with purple stripes to disprove the entire statement. As einstein once said no amount of experimentation can prove him right, but all it takes is one experiment to prove him wrong. That being said. The hypothesis here is that being smart makes you happy. To disprove this statement all you need is one instance of a person who is smart and not happy. That's it. Keep in mind I never said being smart makes you unhappy.
deltaonefour 5y ago
There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.
AussieWog93 5y ago
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.
anon9001 5y ago
> You can be happy and smart—it’s just going to take more work. > If you’re smart, you can figure out how to be healthy within your genetic constraints and how to be wealthy within your environmental constraints. Dumb and unhappy here (maybe? not sure, probably because dumb). I think there's a lot of us in the middle that can do some things reasonably well enough to be happy, but not all the things. It's hard to be happy if you're smart enough to know you have toxic traits or unhealthy habits that need to be addressed, but you don't have the time or energy to address them. I might be able to do a career and hit the gym, but not able to have any hobbies or enjoy social events. When I say "not able to", I mean "may cause depression and burnout that could lead to trouble maintaining employment if attempted and failed". Other people might be able to do a career, have side projects, and network at all the important events, but can't stop smoking cigarettes and chugging energy drinks. I see this all the time. People seem to generally alternate between goal-seeking behavior and coping mechanisms for damage caused by the former. Real people, perhaps dumb people, might be smart enough to know that happiness is attainable, but dumb enough to be incapable of precisely juggling all of a modern life in a way that feels successful. I can see the right answers to lots of things, but trying to keep up with all of it is exhausting.
chippy 5y ago
interesting to see that after 2 hours, theres no mention of those things that our grandparents (or their parents) would consider important to happiness. And indeed the only comment which mentions "religion" in the abstract is greyed out. A historian in the future will have lots to make say about our present time. One might easily posit the idea that the rejection of the ideas of whats important to happiness from our ancestors might be a large part of the reason why there's unhappiness now.
- pingeroo 5y ago
  I think religion is absolutely a huge factor in happiness. Some of the most deeply religious people I know are also the happiest. Conversely the most miserable people I know are not. Most religions erase uncertainties & fears that haunt us, like death of loved ones and our own. They give people purpose and a reason to live — the sense that everything will be fine in the end. I don't like when people dismiss religion and liken it to fairy tales or delusion. At a fundamental level religion is perhaps the most effective antidepressant.
alsetmusic 5y ago
My father told me, when I was about twelve years old, that being dissatisfied with life was a sign of intelligence and imagination. He said that intelligent people can imagine how life could be better than it is. I mostly think that’s bs (who can’t imagine a better life?), but I agree that imagination reveals degrees of dissatisfaction.
indymike 5y ago
It took me about 30 years of to figure out something: being happy is a choice. Just because I felt a twinge of fear, anger, sadness or loneliness didn't mean I had to choose to dwell on it. I could just shrug and go back to being happy. I could choose to do things that make me happy, instead of... whatever that thing I was "obliged" to do. After that realization, my life got a lot better.
- superasn 5y ago
  Yes that is true. There is a TED talk by Gen Nyema I watched a few years back which explains it quite well. It's such a simplistic fix that you feel it can't work and yet it does. It definitely a choice and you can choose to be happy in any situation if you have the emotional awareness for it.
- steve_adams_86 5y ago
  I think for many of us (myself included), the dwelling feels familiar and safe. I had a hard childhood in some regards, and I learned that fear and doubt were safe bets. I spent many times being unbearably excited for things only to be disappointed, over and over, for so long. It’s so strange to think that as an adult, I’m still that kid. I can rationalize past it, but I still recoil from life like a child. Many of us do. We learn some things as kids and have a hard time letting go of it. Especially if it’s meant to protect us. I have a hard time doing more than rationalizing. The act of letting go and carrying on with more positive or even neutral thoughts is actually a staggering task to accomplish at times. Hopefully with practice I can get there. I’m realizing it’s important not only for me, but everyone around me. I’m not a black cloud or anything, but I could be a much better person to be around if I could overcome stuff like this. If anything, I’d just be more present and available. I tend to disappear when I’m unhappy - not many people have to experience it.
stephc_int13 5y ago
Happiness is a second-order derivative; this is why it is so unstable and fleeting. Joy is the first-order derivative of good things happening, or more precisely, your brain noticing improvement. The surest way to maintain lifetime happiness would be to start it in the shittiest possible conditions and see them steadily improving over your lifetime.
- pingeroo 5y ago
  This. I came to the states from a country where I would routinely see people living in literally shitty conditions. When I see people depressed in America, I can't help but cringe a little. I'm not discounting people's misery, because I know these feelings are based on a relative scale. When you are born in heaven, you don't realize you're living in it. Funnily from what I've observed, the same goes for hell.
  - Wiseacre 5y ago
    If it is common for the rich to not truly understand unhappiness while living a comfortable life, would it also be the case for the poor to not truly understand happiness while living an uncomfortable life?
_448 5y ago
Smart people are rarely happy. That is the curse of the smart. And I think there is a reason for that, smart people are always looking for problems to solve in a smart way :) The only time smart people are happy is when they have solved a problem; that lasts for a brief moment and then they are on to solving the next problem. Just my 2cents hypothesis :)
- freedom2099 5y ago
  That is absolutely untrue! I am am pretty smart (I was tested by a psychologist and my IQ is in the 98th percentile) and am an extremely happy. I like solving problems but Ondo not seek them! I found joy I so many things! I love my job (and I am not an ambitious person… a long I earn well I do not care about climbing the “ladder”) and I earn well, Living in France I work 35h a week with 35 days of vacation a year, I have a lovely wife I have been with for 20 years, plenty of fun hobbies to engage in ad many good friends! I have no reason to be sad unless I actively decide to be sad!
verisimi 5y ago
Who says 'happiness' is _the_ thing to want? To me, happiness is a peripheral - something that might or might not occur - I don't really care. I would rather be based in truth and do what I think is right, than live an illusory but happy life. And being smart is about #10 of the list of attributes I value too! (Honesty, bravery, curiosity, authenticity are certainly ones that I value more.)
TameAntelope 5y ago
Satisfaction is the state of being happy even when you're doing nothing. Pleasure is the state of being happy because of something you're actively doing. Satisfaction usually has a relatively low ceiling but a very high floor compared to pleasure. Satisfaction is also usually gained through the sacrifice of pleasure. My experience is that smart people often try to maximize satisfaction, at the cost of all of the pleasure. I believe you need both to live an enjoyable life. It's hard to strike a balance.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
I think my big problem has always been boredom. I was bored in school, and I'm bored at work because nothing ever is particularly challenging. No days off for good behavior. I've been coping by delving into intellectually stimulating hobbies, but that comes at the expense of other areas of my life. There are only so many hours in the day.
Apreche 5y ago
I didn't read the article, but ignorance is bliss. There are a lot of things to be unhappy about in this world that no amount of individual intelligence can fix. Climate change, war, disease, poverty. Even if my life is pretty great, relatively speaking, the fact that our society sucks is the primary source of my unhappiness. If I was less well informed, I wouldn't know about all the terrible things going on, and would probably be much happier. But because I know and care, that's just how it is.
- pingeroo 5y ago
  I guess it all comes down to mindset in the end. The good old question of "is the glass half empty or half full?" I look around at the world and see the same wretchedness that you do, but perhaps I don't see it as you do. I take solace in knowing it could all be a lot worse.
Gravityloss 5y ago
I think one part of the problem is being "too clever by half": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079369 There are troublemakers in school that are suffering from learning issues. But there are also "rebels" that are intelligent - yet it's usually not a good outcome for them. Stanislaw Lem handles these kind of themes in his books. A person, living his life, suddenly gets a revelation and sees the reality for what it is - all that he believed was really a sham. Sure, maybe some people wish they never had this disillusionment. But if it's happened, what do you do then? How do you work, outside or within, the "sham" system?
LeroyRaz 5y ago
It is rubish that intelligence causes unhappiness. The more intelligent you are the more of this amazing universe you can understand and therefore appreciate... There is so much joy, so much beauty in this life. Art, music, sex with someone you love, the wonder of understanding or creating, and intelligence gets in the way not one iota. Honestly, speaking only in cynical observations is associated with only middling intelligence, or people who have decided to build their identity around some misguided sense of what intelligence looks like, rather than those who actually are intelligent. Think of Einstein, Feyman, Von Neuman, they all knew how to enjoy life. Intelligence is a privilege, and one should appreciate it. Bemoaning ones intelligence, is as ugly and clueless as a richman complaining to the poor about how he has too much freedom. If one is inteligent one should apreciate ones privilege, and think how to use it to help others
mattront 5y ago
How can we use our intelligence to be more happy (in a sense of being ok, content, at peace and able to constructively deal with any situation life throws at us)? In my experience, being happy or not, mostly depends on my emotional responses to any given situation. For example, reading about highly accomplished people here on HN can make me feel envious and unsatisfied with my performance. Intelligence makes it possible to understand facts like: - There is a huge range of possible emotional responses to a single situation. Some are beneficial for me and some are not. - How I react now is simply a habit. It is not something hard-coded in the situation itself. Instead of envy, I can be happy for these successful people, rejoice in their success. Feel inspired by their example. Doing that is being kind to myself. The more we work with our emotions, the more flexible they become. There is a lot of freedom here. - The perceived space where my life is happening can be expanded by noticing that what I focus on (myself, my work, my family, my home...) is not the whole reality. There are other people, other countries, other beliefs, all the nature... and all of that is my world. - Other people are just like me in wanting to be happy and avoiding pain. My happiness is not more important than their - but also not less. We are all doing our best. A kind of feeling of closeness comes through this insight. Any of these facts will make our life better. And all are discovered through intelligent exploration, through using our smartness.
OnlyMortal 5y ago
Oh that’s quite a simple answer. The world and society is disappointing.
emerged 5y ago
I’m continuously happy when left to my own devices. When I’m mad or sad it’s because of people. This has led me to be somewhat of a hermit, but it is genuinely a far more enjoyable life.
newbie789 5y ago
musicale 5y ago
Because intelligence, knowledge and wisdom lead one to the most painful and inevitable truths of existence, which often lead to despair and hopelessness.
- freedom2099 5y ago
  Not true… yes… being smart you realise the world sucks! And that you can’t do anything to fix it! But being smart there is one thing you can do… make it NOT suck for YOU!
abdk 5y ago
mbrodersen 5y ago
I don’t agree with this article at all. I have known plenty of not very smart people who live unhappy lives because they don’t have the mental skills needed to fix the problems they have. And the happiest people I know are very smart. They actively find ways to remove the pain/friction in their lives that stops them from being happy. They also tends to be honest with themselves about what needs improving. And do the work to fix it.
ggfgdjfhgjsdhfg 5y ago
Why does Naval strike me as someone who has a combination of arrogance and judgment in his every interaction? He sounds like a weird mashup of Alan Watts meets Osho meets Vinod Khosla character...
renewiltord 5y ago
Makes sense. The smarter you are, the more easily you can find solutions to problems given constraints. Presumably, someone who is otherwise smart but is also unhappy persistently is smart enough to notice things that then lead to unhappiness but not smart enough to fix them given the constraints of their life. That is, there is a valley of unhappiness as you trend upwards in intelligence.
john567 5y ago
Being happy is the wrong goal. What is intelligence anyway? We don't know. Not really. We have an idea of what we associate with intelligent behavior but we don't really have a good theory of intelligence that we can use to create intelligence. The reason I think happiness is the wrong goal is because it's a by product of the right goal. Not the goal itself. That which fulfills you should reward you with a feeling of happiness. For example, my children give me happiness when they get to roam and be children. But when I must discipline my kids they get sad and I get sad. There's an error here in my parenting that I'm trying to minimize. It's difficult but it requires me to not take it on myself to shoulder their burdens. They have to work through most of their issues on their own and I cannot protect them from the world. Trying to shield them from it will probably make everyone unhappy. My work makes me feel important but it doesn't make me feel happy. Having a good working relationship with my co-workers rewards me with happiness and meaning. I don't aim for happiness but I'm quite happy. Not all the time but when I care about the right things I do feel genuinely happy.
- sunny3 5y ago
  I'm of the opinion that happiness shouldn't be a goal of my life, for different reasons. Perhaps I don't fully understand the word "happiness", but I've always considered it to be a rather transient state of mind: it's always on the order of hours for me, which means I don't feel happy for most of my waking hours (although one can certainly argue that one only needs e.g., 2 hours of a day of happiness, to be "happy"). Combined with the hedonistic treadmill, happiness is more like golden nuggets that one stumble upon on a path to somewhere rather than the path or destination itself. The problem with this view though, I've found, is that it's difficult to find goals and meanings elsewhere. The vast, vast majority of people are after happiness, which makes much of the social construct centered around obtaining it and conditions me for that goal as well. It's very difficult to find alternative an alternative goal (I do believe it's easier to live life if there's a goal, not that there should be one).

144 points by sandes 5y ago

Being smart isn't enough to be happy. You also need a sense of freedom and purpose. If you're out of touch with yourself and aren't free, you will not find a genuine purpose in your life; your whole life will be about channeling the will of those who have power over you.

dijit 5y ago

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-of-a-prodigy-who-appeared-to-be-ordinary.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/19/us/one-shot-ends-the-life...

jcal93 5y ago
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.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  I think it is more that one has the ability to see "the man behind the curtain", and at how badly the deck is stacked against you for most things. Seeing and hearing the lies promulgated absolutely everywhere and knowing they are so where others do not.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    What I don’t get is what keeps people around who have “seen the man behind the curtain”, and know enough to suffer from knowing.
- sidlls 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
    - MonaroVXR 5y ago
      I have the complete opposite experience right now and it's killing me. Even with dating. Gotta explain why I do this or that. Because bit it's contradictory in their eyes Any advice?
      - NeuNeurosis 5y ago
        Interesting, without context its pretty difficult to offer advice. From your comment, and I'm reaching here, you might not have a great awareness of how your actions/choices are perceived by others before you make them. You seem to in hindsight, which is great. Also it could be the stage of life you are in where the people you are surrounded by are still exploring options of how to live and are curious when they see someone make choices outside their realm or expectation. In either case it comes down to how much you want them to understand your what and why. I have really tried hard at accepting that most others are not going to see why I make my choices so what is the point of explaining any of them. This is all conditional on who it is and how much I love them but it is a constant in my thought process. Letting go of the need for people to understand your motivations is liberating, when you can achieve it. :) I hope this helps.
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emodendroket 5y ago
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.
- bruce343434 5y ago
  How can you possibly connect to your peers when you have forgotten more than they will ever know? They have nothing to offer you. Every interaction predictable and boring. It must be supremely lonely being the odd one out.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    I will tell you what. He probably would have liked to have a girlfriend more than to hang around a bunch of kids in their early twenties treating him like their baby brother, no matter how smart he was. It seems like a very narrow notion of the value of relationships with others if you think that any interaction where you’re not being intellectually challenged is worthless.
    - bruce343434 5y ago
      I can tell you form experience having a significant other with a sufficient "gap" gets very demoralizing and frustrating. That, or I just can't appreciate what I have.
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        That can be frustrating, but the kind of isolation you'd get being a young kid in a college milieu would be much worse. The story goes that Nick the Greek introduced Albert Einstein to his gambling buddies as "Little Al from Princeton," who "controls a lot of the action around Jersey." I've always aspired to be able to move between worlds with that kind of grace.
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e1g 5y ago
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/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22998852/ [2] https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJHD.2012.050808 https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJHD.2012...
dlsa 5y ago
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.
- booboofixer 5y ago
  I have nothing to add to this so I'm sorry for commenting if i shouldn't. But thank you for writing this because i felt a little insane looking at the world around me and coming to some of the same conclusions as you have arrived at, that result from treating people a certain way. I'm not sure why most other people don't seem to get this.
Trasmatta 5y ago
Hah, joke's on you! I'm dumb AND unhappy.
erikbye 5y ago
No surprise there. Both my cat and dog seem happier than me, and I hope they are less intelligent.
radu_floricica 5y ago
That's a myth. Intelligence is correlated with quite a lot of things which promote happiness. There are already sources in the thread, so I'll just mention a couple factors: education/work/money, and late marriage/kids. Believe it or not, but not living close to minimum wage and having children only when married and you can afford them are both huge factors of a happy life. Huge. And both are very correlated with intelligence. Now, why is this myth so widespread? Tbh, I don't really know. I can guess at availability heuristic - smart people see mostly themselves and smart people around them, see that the happiness level isn't that great, especially when young, imagine everybody else is happier so it's a reasonable conclusion that being smart is bad. The problems with this logic are that less smart/poorer people have it a lot worse, but they don't have contact with them. And also that extra education will indeed delay your earning years somewhat, so being young, not-yet-earning and smart does feel pretty bad.

geek_at 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  The hedonistic treadmill is real. Happiness has to come from within.
pingeroo 5y ago
Some more questions to add to this list: 1) Are you short of food or water 2) Are you or your loved ones in constant fear of being enslaved and/or blown to bits 3) Has there been a systematic effort to drive out your culture and replace it with another I could go on but I think I've made my point. So many people today live in what could only be described as hell. Sitting in the western world with our cushy lives, regardless of how many headlines we read about war, famine, rape and death, it just doesn't really matter to us. It's not our world and it's not our problem. If only we could see things from their perspective. If only we could feel their suffering the way they do, I don't think we could be unhappy for a day in our lives. But as humans naturally we are never satisfied with where we are and what we have. We always want more. Even when we have enough to eat, we want more. Even when we are surrounded by people who love us, we want more. Even when we have money, we want more. In many ways I suppose this is both a blessing and a curse. The constant desire to make things better, faster, stronger, and never being satisfied with what we have is what fuels us. Without it we would not have made all the astounding innovations that, to an observer from the past, could only be characterized as magic.

BoumTAC 5y ago

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 5y ago
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.

ianai 5y ago

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 5y ago

Happiness and anger are extremes. The goal in life should be contentment.

CyanBird 5y ago
Very much agreed, that and thankfulness or a variation thereof

amelius 5y ago

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 5y ago
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.

emodendroket 5y ago

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 5y ago

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 5y ago

There is actually a good book with the exact same title. https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Smart-Why-Arent-Happy/dp/B01DYFUVRO/ https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Smart-Why-Arent-Happy/dp/B01DYF...

seibelj 5y ago

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.

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ruined 5y ago

seriously, does anyone know even one person who's happy

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CyanBird 5y ago

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 5y ago

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 5y ago

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 5y ago
This reminded me of an old anecdote: https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/6ft98c/conversation_between_a_fisherman_and_an_mba/ 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 5y ago
  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.
  - bittercynic 5y ago
    I really appreciate the sentiment, and think I would like to live the suburban version of that life. With some luck, and by maintaining thrifty habits, I think some semblance of that life is within reach for a good fraction of the population today.

largbae 5y ago

This is what actually separates humans from animals: Humans are capable of being dissatisfied with _any_ situation, no matter how favorable.

loves_mangoes 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_47J6sy3A.

Sebb767 5y ago

> Like everything else, there is some truth to this. Generally, the more intelligent you are, the more you can see behind the façade 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.

andrewjl 5y ago
Why is the quoted passage cynical and not simply prudent?
- Sebb767 5y ago
  That was actually referring to the rest of the paragraph: > You see the cynicism and manipulation behind so many things portrayed as being good for you or society. You become cynical, and you signal your intelligence through cynicism. Very smart people often communicate in purely cynical observations. I didn't want to include the whole quote since I mostly responded to the quoted part and the quote would get quite long overall.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  Seeing all the bullshit and deciding to be cynical and do nothing is intellectually lazy and defeatist, which is the sort of short-sighted and lack of awareness a teenager would do instead of a more prudent adult.
  - bruce343434 5y ago
    I'm asking this in good faith because I am that "edgy teenager": what would the more prudent adult do?

keiferski 5y ago

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.

pingeroo 5y ago
I wouldn't say it's a short term state. At least personally, I can pause at any point in the day and think "am I happy", to which the answer is usually yes. Of course there are peaks and valleys, which as you described, are usually short bursts of emotion — like when you listen to your favorite song or see your best friend. But I think happiness also exists at a more baseline level when you are just... content in being.

ghoomketu 5y ago

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 5y ago

Both success and satisfaction are more valuable to me than happiness.

alimov 5y ago
So success and satisfaction are not the things that keep you feeling good/happy? I don’t understand what you mean to say.
- m0llusk 5y ago
  No, I'm angry most of the time and don't really have a problem with that. Having accomplished significant goals makes me feel this time I have spent living is worth the oxygen I have consumed.

JamesAdir 5y ago

This is from 2020. The title should be fixed.

dejj 5y ago

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 5y ago

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 5y ago
> 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 https://youtu.be/Q6wmIehW6EM?list=LL&t=47
serverholic 5y ago
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, and as a result 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 5y ago

> 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 5y ago

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 5y ago
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?

erikbye 5y ago

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.

giantg2 5y ago

"Generally, the more intelligent you are, the more you can see behind the façade 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.

wenbin 5y ago

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 .

jasperry 5y ago
I hear you, I'm always thinking about how to get more control over my time. But I also think nobody can be happy without some amount of good vibes from other people, and you can never control that 100%. You just have to put yourself in positions where it can happen, and that involves giving up some control.

deltaonefour 5y ago

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- 5y ago
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 5y ago
  Read carefully what I wrote. >So if anything that proves that being smart does not make you happy This means, in your words "no correlation" of higher intelligence and happiness. >and it hints at the possibility that being stupid actually makes you happy. This means the possibility of lower intelligence and happiness. I was very careful with my words.
  - np- 5y ago
    >So if anything that proves that being smart does not make you happy That’s because one anecdote doesn’t “prove” anything regardless if one says the word “prove” or not. You got one datapoint and you extrapolated negatively from that—all I am saying is there is an equally valid conclusion that can be drawn from the anecdote. I.e I could also say that since children seem happier, that “proves” that it’s being short and loud makes you happier.
    - deltaonefour 5y ago
      You don't understand science. And you did not read my sentences carefully. In science nothing can be proved. But all it takes.is one data point to disprove something. I hypothesize that all zebras have black and white stripes. This hypothesis can never be proved no matter how many zebras we observe. But all it takes is the observation of one zebra with purple stripes to disprove the entire statement. As einstein once said no amount of experimentation can prove him right, but all it takes is one experiment to prove him wrong. That being said. The hypothesis here is that being smart makes you happy. To disprove this statement all you need is one instance of a person who is smart and not happy. That's it. Keep in mind I never said being smart makes you unhappy.

deltaonefour 5y ago

There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.

AussieWog93 5y ago

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.

anon9001 5y ago

> You can be happy and smart—it’s just going to take more work. > If you’re smart, you can figure out how to be healthy within your genetic constraints and how to be wealthy within your environmental constraints. Dumb and unhappy here (maybe? not sure, probably because dumb). I think there's a lot of us in the middle that can do some things reasonably well enough to be happy, but not all the things. It's hard to be happy if you're smart enough to know you have toxic traits or unhealthy habits that need to be addressed, but you don't have the time or energy to address them. I might be able to do a career and hit the gym, but not able to have any hobbies or enjoy social events. When I say "not able to", I mean "may cause depression and burnout that could lead to trouble maintaining employment if attempted and failed". Other people might be able to do a career, have side projects, and network at all the important events, but can't stop smoking cigarettes and chugging energy drinks. I see this all the time. People seem to generally alternate between goal-seeking behavior and coping mechanisms for damage caused by the former. Real people, perhaps dumb people, might be smart enough to know that happiness is attainable, but dumb enough to be incapable of precisely juggling all of a modern life in a way that feels successful. I can see the right answers to lots of things, but trying to keep up with all of it is exhausting.

chippy 5y ago

interesting to see that after 2 hours, theres no mention of those things that our grandparents (or their parents) would consider important to happiness. And indeed the only comment which mentions "religion" in the abstract is greyed out. A historian in the future will have lots to make say about our present time. One might easily posit the idea that the rejection of the ideas of whats important to happiness from our ancestors might be a large part of the reason why there's unhappiness now.

pingeroo 5y ago
I think religion is absolutely a huge factor in happiness. Some of the most deeply religious people I know are also the happiest. Conversely the most miserable people I know are not. Most religions erase uncertainties & fears that haunt us, like death of loved ones and our own. They give people purpose and a reason to live — the sense that everything will be fine in the end. I don't like when people dismiss religion and liken it to fairy tales or delusion. At a fundamental level religion is perhaps the most effective antidepressant.

alsetmusic 5y ago

My father told me, when I was about twelve years old, that being dissatisfied with life was a sign of intelligence and imagination. He said that intelligent people can imagine how life could be better than it is. I mostly think that’s bs (who can’t imagine a better life?), but I agree that imagination reveals degrees of dissatisfaction.

indymike 5y ago

It took me about 30 years of to figure out something: being happy is a choice. Just because I felt a twinge of fear, anger, sadness or loneliness didn't mean I had to choose to dwell on it. I could just shrug and go back to being happy. I could choose to do things that make me happy, instead of... whatever that thing I was "obliged" to do. After that realization, my life got a lot better.

superasn 5y ago
Yes that is true. There is a TED talk by Gen Nyema I watched a few years back which explains it quite well. It's such a simplistic fix that you feel it can't work and yet it does. It definitely a choice and you can choose to be happy in any situation if you have the emotional awareness for it.
steve_adams_86 5y ago
I think for many of us (myself included), the dwelling feels familiar and safe. I had a hard childhood in some regards, and I learned that fear and doubt were safe bets. I spent many times being unbearably excited for things only to be disappointed, over and over, for so long. It’s so strange to think that as an adult, I’m still that kid. I can rationalize past it, but I still recoil from life like a child. Many of us do. We learn some things as kids and have a hard time letting go of it. Especially if it’s meant to protect us. I have a hard time doing more than rationalizing. The act of letting go and carrying on with more positive or even neutral thoughts is actually a staggering task to accomplish at times. Hopefully with practice I can get there. I’m realizing it’s important not only for me, but everyone around me. I’m not a black cloud or anything, but I could be a much better person to be around if I could overcome stuff like this. If anything, I’d just be more present and available. I tend to disappear when I’m unhappy - not many people have to experience it.

stephc_int13 5y ago

Happiness is a second-order derivative; this is why it is so unstable and fleeting. Joy is the first-order derivative of good things happening, or more precisely, your brain noticing improvement. The surest way to maintain lifetime happiness would be to start it in the shittiest possible conditions and see them steadily improving over your lifetime.

pingeroo 5y ago
This. I came to the states from a country where I would routinely see people living in literally shitty conditions. When I see people depressed in America, I can't help but cringe a little. I'm not discounting people's misery, because I know these feelings are based on a relative scale. When you are born in heaven, you don't realize you're living in it. Funnily from what I've observed, the same goes for hell.
- Wiseacre 5y ago
  If it is common for the rich to not truly understand unhappiness while living a comfortable life, would it also be the case for the poor to not truly understand happiness while living an uncomfortable life?

_448 5y ago

Smart people are rarely happy. That is the curse of the smart. And I think there is a reason for that, smart people are always looking for problems to solve in a smart way :) The only time smart people are happy is when they have solved a problem; that lasts for a brief moment and then they are on to solving the next problem. Just my 2cents hypothesis :)

freedom2099 5y ago
That is absolutely untrue! I am am pretty smart (I was tested by a psychologist and my IQ is in the 98th percentile) and am an extremely happy. I like solving problems but Ondo not seek them! I found joy I so many things! I love my job (and I am not an ambitious person… a long I earn well I do not care about climbing the “ladder”) and I earn well, Living in France I work 35h a week with 35 days of vacation a year, I have a lovely wife I have been with for 20 years, plenty of fun hobbies to engage in ad many good friends! I have no reason to be sad unless I actively decide to be sad!

verisimi 5y ago

Who says 'happiness' is _the_ thing to want? To me, happiness is a peripheral - something that might or might not occur - I don't really care. I would rather be based in truth and do what I think is right, than live an illusory but happy life. And being smart is about #10 of the list of attributes I value too! (Honesty, bravery, curiosity, authenticity are certainly ones that I value more.)

TameAntelope 5y ago

Satisfaction is the state of being happy even when you're doing nothing. Pleasure is the state of being happy because of something you're actively doing. Satisfaction usually has a relatively low ceiling but a very high floor compared to pleasure. Satisfaction is also usually gained through the sacrifice of pleasure. My experience is that smart people often try to maximize satisfaction, at the cost of all of the pleasure. I believe you need both to live an enjoyable life. It's hard to strike a balance.

marginalia_nu 5y ago

I think my big problem has always been boredom. I was bored in school, and I'm bored at work because nothing ever is particularly challenging. No days off for good behavior. I've been coping by delving into intellectually stimulating hobbies, but that comes at the expense of other areas of my life. There are only so many hours in the day.

Apreche 5y ago

I didn't read the article, but ignorance is bliss. There are a lot of things to be unhappy about in this world that no amount of individual intelligence can fix. Climate change, war, disease, poverty. Even if my life is pretty great, relatively speaking, the fact that our society sucks is the primary source of my unhappiness. If I was less well informed, I wouldn't know about all the terrible things going on, and would probably be much happier. But because I know and care, that's just how it is.

pingeroo 5y ago
I guess it all comes down to mindset in the end. The good old question of "is the glass half empty or half full?" I look around at the world and see the same wretchedness that you do, but perhaps I don't see it as you do. I take solace in knowing it could all be a lot worse.

Gravityloss 5y ago

I think one part of the problem is being "too clever by half": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079369 There are troublemakers in school that are suffering from learning issues. But there are also "rebels" that are intelligent - yet it's usually not a good outcome for them. Stanislaw Lem handles these kind of themes in his books. A person, living his life, suddenly gets a revelation and sees the reality for what it is - all that he believed was really a sham. Sure, maybe some people wish they never had this disillusionment. But if it's happened, what do you do then? How do you work, outside or within, the "sham" system?

LeroyRaz 5y ago

It is rubish that intelligence causes unhappiness. The more intelligent you are the more of this amazing universe you can understand and therefore appreciate... There is so much joy, so much beauty in this life. Art, music, sex with someone you love, the wonder of understanding or creating, and intelligence gets in the way not one iota. Honestly, speaking only in cynical observations is associated with only middling intelligence, or people who have decided to build their identity around some misguided sense of what intelligence looks like, rather than those who actually are intelligent. Think of Einstein, Feyman, Von Neuman, they all knew how to enjoy life. Intelligence is a privilege, and one should appreciate it. Bemoaning ones intelligence, is as ugly and clueless as a richman complaining to the poor about how he has too much freedom. If one is inteligent one should apreciate ones privilege, and think how to use it to help others

mattront 5y ago

How can we use our intelligence to be more happy (in a sense of being ok, content, at peace and able to constructively deal with any situation life throws at us)? In my experience, being happy or not, mostly depends on my emotional responses to any given situation. For example, reading about highly accomplished people here on HN can make me feel envious and unsatisfied with my performance. Intelligence makes it possible to understand facts like: - There is a huge range of possible emotional responses to a single situation. Some are beneficial for me and some are not. - How I react now is simply a habit. It is not something hard-coded in the situation itself. Instead of envy, I can be happy for these successful people, rejoice in their success. Feel inspired by their example. Doing that is being kind to myself. The more we work with our emotions, the more flexible they become. There is a lot of freedom here. - The perceived space where my life is happening can be expanded by noticing that what I focus on (myself, my work, my family, my home...) is not the whole reality. There are other people, other countries, other beliefs, all the nature... and all of that is my world. - Other people are just like me in wanting to be happy and avoiding pain. My happiness is not more important than their - but also not less. We are all doing our best. A kind of feeling of closeness comes through this insight. Any of these facts will make our life better. And all are discovered through intelligent exploration, through using our smartness.

OnlyMortal 5y ago

Oh that’s quite a simple answer. The world and society is disappointing.

emerged 5y ago

I’m continuously happy when left to my own devices. When I’m mad or sad it’s because of people. This has led me to be somewhat of a hermit, but it is genuinely a far more enjoyable life.

newbie789 5y ago

musicale 5y ago

Because intelligence, knowledge and wisdom lead one to the most painful and inevitable truths of existence, which often lead to despair and hopelessness.

freedom2099 5y ago
Not true… yes… being smart you realise the world sucks! And that you can’t do anything to fix it! But being smart there is one thing you can do… make it NOT suck for YOU!

abdk 5y ago

mbrodersen 5y ago

I don’t agree with this article at all. I have known plenty of not very smart people who live unhappy lives because they don’t have the mental skills needed to fix the problems they have. And the happiest people I know are very smart. They actively find ways to remove the pain/friction in their lives that stops them from being happy. They also tends to be honest with themselves about what needs improving. And do the work to fix it.

ggfgdjfhgjsdhfg 5y ago

Why does Naval strike me as someone who has a combination of arrogance and judgment in his every interaction? He sounds like a weird mashup of Alan Watts meets Osho meets Vinod Khosla character...

renewiltord 5y ago

Makes sense. The smarter you are, the more easily you can find solutions to problems given constraints. Presumably, someone who is otherwise smart but is also unhappy persistently is smart enough to notice things that then lead to unhappiness but not smart enough to fix them given the constraints of their life. That is, there is a valley of unhappiness as you trend upwards in intelligence.

john567 5y ago

Being happy is the wrong goal. What is intelligence anyway? We don't know. Not really. We have an idea of what we associate with intelligent behavior but we don't really have a good theory of intelligence that we can use to create intelligence. The reason I think happiness is the wrong goal is because it's a by product of the right goal. Not the goal itself. That which fulfills you should reward you with a feeling of happiness. For example, my children give me happiness when they get to roam and be children. But when I must discipline my kids they get sad and I get sad. There's an error here in my parenting that I'm trying to minimize. It's difficult but it requires me to not take it on myself to shoulder their burdens. They have to work through most of their issues on their own and I cannot protect them from the world. Trying to shield them from it will probably make everyone unhappy. My work makes me feel important but it doesn't make me feel happy. Having a good working relationship with my co-workers rewards me with happiness and meaning. I don't aim for happiness but I'm quite happy. Not all the time but when I care about the right things I do feel genuinely happy.

sunny3 5y ago
I'm of the opinion that happiness shouldn't be a goal of my life, for different reasons. Perhaps I don't fully understand the word "happiness", but I've always considered it to be a rather transient state of mind: it's always on the order of hours for me, which means I don't feel happy for most of my waking hours (although one can certainly argue that one only needs e.g., 2 hours of a day of happiness, to be "happy"). Combined with the hedonistic treadmill, happiness is more like golden nuggets that one stumble upon on a path to somewhere rather than the path or destination itself. The problem with this view though, I've found, is that it's difficult to find goals and meanings elsewhere. The vast, vast majority of people are after happiness, which makes much of the social construct centered around obtaining it and conditions me for that goal as well. It's very difficult to find alternative an alternative goal (I do believe it's easier to live life if there's a goal, not that there should be one).