4 ms·

No article loaded for me, so I risk a "didn't read, but comment anyway" situation. Quite a few years ago, there was the "Seven habits of highly successful peop

No article loaded for me, so I risk a "didn't read, but comment anyway" situation. Quite a few years ago, there was the "Seven habits of highly successful people" (or something similar) fad. The idea being if only you can copy these habits, you, too will be successful. Except it doesn't work that way. These habits are more a symptom of the sort of personality that is successful, rather than a cause of success. My personal impression is that people have a "happiness set point" that is more or less a hardwired part of their personality. Chronically happy people will be so even if their life isn't so great, and chronically unhappy people will be so even with good success metrics. Trying to move your happiness set point by emulating habits of happy people may not work very well, no better than trying to tell a chronically depressed person "just cheer up" or a chronically overweight person "just eat less".

VieEnCode 4y ago
That might be true up to a point, but I suspect that enough adversity, poverty and physical and mental ill health can crush the sunniest of dispositions.
- wintermutestwin 4y ago
  Yes, but conversely, therapy, self-examination, habit change, etc can elevate the gloomiest of dispositions. The point is that we are mutable.
escapedmoose 4y ago
Anecdotal counterpoint: I’ve always been a very happy person, and I coincidentally tend to do most of the activities the experts listed. I’ve also experimentally dropped some of the activities purposefully from time to time to see how they affect my mood (in hopes of getting some free time back). Sleep, exercise, and time spent in nature are the essentials for me: when I don’t have time for them, everything goes to shit. I’ve found that my mood also decreases pretty drastically when I don’t work on hobbies. I also need to at least talk to friends/family even if just on the phone or texting. Meditation is sort of in the middle, with only a slight affect on my happiness, so I dropped it. Prayer doesn’t do much for me, and I’ve never tried therapy. Spending time on social media, news, and/or Reddit completely destroys my mood. That’s my personal hierarchy. The major points align with the “experts.” And IME, the activities do affect my mood, not necessarily the other way around.
- neaden 4y ago
  The problem is working out the causation there. If I'm getting less sleep and exercise for instance, it's probably because I'm either really busy, really stressed, or otherwise sick. So I'm less happy at those times but am I less happy because of the lack of sleep or the other factor that's causing me to lose sleep. The answer is probably some of both but if you only look at some of the factors you are going to overstate their importance.
  - escapedmoose 4y ago
    That’s why I experimented: to work out the correlation/causation issue. When I was experiencing a long period of stable happiness, I would take away one of these things to see if it would affect my happiness, all other things being equal. Some of them did, so I’m assuming causation for those.
    - thefaux 4y ago
      I use this technique of dropping things that I enjoy modestly but suspect may not be worth the cost. Among other things, it got me to stop keeping alcohol in the house. The nice thing about these experiments is that you realize that there are many things that are enjoyable but that can be eliminated without much overall consequence. This makes me less attached to most things (even the things that feel like non-negotiables like exercise) because I know that I can adapt to their absence. Of course one should avoid falling into the trap of extreme asceticism too, but I suspect few of us have that problem.

VieEnCode 4y ago

That might be true up to a point, but I suspect that enough adversity, poverty and physical and mental ill health can crush the sunniest of dispositions.

wintermutestwin 4y ago
Yes, but conversely, therapy, self-examination, habit change, etc can elevate the gloomiest of dispositions. The point is that we are mutable.

escapedmoose 4y ago

Anecdotal counterpoint: I’ve always been a very happy person, and I coincidentally tend to do most of the activities the experts listed. I’ve also experimentally dropped some of the activities purposefully from time to time to see how they affect my mood (in hopes of getting some free time back). Sleep, exercise, and time spent in nature are the essentials for me: when I don’t have time for them, everything goes to shit. I’ve found that my mood also decreases pretty drastically when I don’t work on hobbies. I also need to at least talk to friends/family even if just on the phone or texting. Meditation is sort of in the middle, with only a slight affect on my happiness, so I dropped it. Prayer doesn’t do much for me, and I’ve never tried therapy. Spending time on social media, news, and/or Reddit completely destroys my mood. That’s my personal hierarchy. The major points align with the “experts.” And IME, the activities do affect my mood, not necessarily the other way around.

neaden 4y ago
The problem is working out the causation there. If I'm getting less sleep and exercise for instance, it's probably because I'm either really busy, really stressed, or otherwise sick. So I'm less happy at those times but am I less happy because of the lack of sleep or the other factor that's causing me to lose sleep. The answer is probably some of both but if you only look at some of the factors you are going to overstate their importance.
- escapedmoose 4y ago
  That’s why I experimented: to work out the correlation/causation issue. When I was experiencing a long period of stable happiness, I would take away one of these things to see if it would affect my happiness, all other things being equal. Some of them did, so I’m assuming causation for those.
  - thefaux 4y ago
    I use this technique of dropping things that I enjoy modestly but suspect may not be worth the cost. Among other things, it got me to stop keeping alcohol in the house. The nice thing about these experiments is that you realize that there are many things that are enjoyable but that can be eliminated without much overall consequence. This makes me less attached to most things (even the things that feel like non-negotiables like exercise) because I know that I can adapt to their absence. Of course one should avoid falling into the trap of extreme asceticism too, but I suspect few of us have that problem.