9 ms·

I don't like these kinds of posts, because they suggest that happiness is something just within our grasp, if only we did the exact right thing to grasp it. In

by acabal 14y ago

I don't like these kinds of posts, because they suggest that happiness is something just within our grasp, if only we did the exact right thing to grasp it. In this case, it's suggesting happiness comes in part from questing to find major change X in your life that will change everything. But I think that's actually the cause of a lot of unhappiness. It's a perpetual "grass is always greener" situation. Say you go on this quest to find the best city to live in. You find a good one, and you're not unhappy. But you'll always have that doubt: "What if I had quested just a little more? Would I have found an even better city?" And that'll bum you out. It becomes the anxiety of "what if". Happiness is being content with the moment you're in. Having good health, a not-empty stomach, and a roof over your head is already a big step above a significant portion of the world's population. Now this doesn't mean you have to become a mindless lump, barely moving from the couch and uninterested in even the slightest change; but it's a suggestion that perhaps learning to be happy with what you have, where you are, and with what interests you, is, in the long run, precisely what will make you happy.

breckenedge 14y ago
There's a great Ted talk by Shawn Achor that shares that point of view: http://on.ted.com/Achor http://on.ted.com/Achor
stephengillie 14y ago
These blog posts appeal to people looking for a "magic elixir" that will turn them into the ninja coder or elite haxor or bullet-dodging movie star that everyone wants to be. It's unrealistic, and comes from unambitious people who want to get the reward without completing the quest. Most of us can't just find what we're really looking for in life. It doesn't exist yet. We have to make the future, and that's a lot of difficult work.
matrix2002 14y ago
I agree. This blog post is a typical young adult way of looking at the world. Always chasing the new best way to live. Whether that is the best city, the best neighborhood, best car, best phone, best career, best company. This does not lead to happiness. Happiness is internal. If you become happy first from examining yourself internally, then you will naturally make decisions that will lead you to your goals. For example, if by looking inward and realizing that your goal for the next few years is to become a successful musician, you will probably gravitate to one of the major musical cities, LA, New York or Nashville. However, if you realize that being a family man and creating a healthy family is your real goal, then having a decent job in a nice suburb is probably where you will end up.
prawks 14y ago
I definitely agree. As a recent graduate, I was constantly plagued with thoughts like that. "Did I choose the right company? Area?" etc. It all comes down to, as you've alluded to, having perspective. I set a goal early in my undergraduate career to be in the very position I'm in today: working for a stable company with a lot of job security, and the ability to use it as a stepping stone in the event I'd like to take on more risk. It's when I remembered the fact that I set that goal and accomplished it fully that I regained the perspective that while the grass may be greener, my grass is already as green as I had always wanted it.
- randomdata 14y ago
  my grass is already as green as I had always wanted it. Which becomes its own struggle. Once you've hit an optimal shade of green, there is nothing left to do. Half of the enjoyment comes from actively working to make your proverbial lawn grow to be so green. Do you rip it up and start over to relive that enjoyment, or sit back and watch it grow?
  - hkmurakami 14y ago
    The serial entrepreneur types tend to go make another lawn :P
  - prawks 14y ago
    I like to imagine that career development is sitting back and watching it grow. Maybe adding a shrub here or there. (I'm not an entrepreneur, just a software engineer.)
martswite 14y ago
If I could up vote this all day I would, you put into words something that I've tried to express to many people over the years, but felt I never quite managed to make the point.
ef4 14y ago
I agree completely that happiness comes from within. And yet there is a duality that has always struck me as important, though hard to explain: it's easiest to be happy when you're striving toward a goal you believe in. But you need to keep your sense of self, your ego, non-attached to the outcome of the striving. That is, you need to invest yourself 100% into doing things that are important to you, but remain detached from whether you ultimately achieve what you wanted to achieve. I think Buddhists call this "skillful attachment".
- hmbg 14y ago
  "Skillful attachment", what a wonderful expression! Doesn't seem that widespread, google-wise, but it definitely goes in my decidedly not very Buddhistic list of rules to live by.
- theorique 14y ago
  Agreed. The idea is to act as if the outcome of what you were working on was the most important thing in the world to you, but to place no value on the actual outcome itself.
  - thibauts 14y ago
    I think this can be put as "enjoy the process".
  - jes 14y ago
    So, I should work to be a great spouse (say), but not care whether I actually achieve that outcome? Why not work to achieve things of value precisely because they are of value to you?
    - zaptheimpaler 14y ago
      Because you won't always achieve them. If you value the end result, it will be all the more disappointing if you fail to achieve it.
    - theorique 14y ago
brador 14y ago
The secretary problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
- mogrim 14y ago
  Not heard of that before, thanks for the link - interesting problem!
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mylons 14y ago
I've been struggling with this since graduating college. It's been 5 years now and it hasn't gotten any better until I reheard a John Lennon quote: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Some things are awful and you should get out -- but I imagine for a lot of us on this site we can chalk it up to first world problems and not living more in the moment.
richardlblair 14y ago
I can agree with this statement. I once read (I wish I could remember where, I'm reaching back 10 years here) that if happiness is your goal then you will never achieve it. You will be so busy "looking" for happiness that you will never realize that you are happy. Instead of making happiness you goal, a person should instead make tangible, achievable goals. Using your example of finding the best city to live in, you could define things that makes a city the best city for you. Good coffee shops, good people, lots of meetups, bars, schools.. the list can go on. Here are some great ted talks surrounding the topic: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch... http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psy...
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  A good read on this is [0], he calls it the hedonic treadmill, where you are always thinking that thing that will make you ultimately happy lies in your next goal achievement. [0] http://www.amazon.com/The-Joyless-Economy-Psychology-Satisfaction/dp/0195073479 http://www.amazon.com/The-Joyless-Economy-Psychology-Satisfa...
Nursie 14y ago
I have known a few people driven to distraction by this sort of thinking. "I will be happy when I get promoted/I buy a house/I move area/Some other future event happens", seems to me to be some sort of mental defence to justify being unhappy now, because obviously you can't be happy now because X hasn't happened yet. The event that's due to happen never makes them happy when it does happen though, they just make another event to pin their supposed future happiness to, all the while missing that life is happening now, friends and family and good times are around now. Perhaps it's part of the human condition.
jpdoctor 14y ago
> I don't like these kinds of posts, because they suggest that happiness is something just within our grasp, if only we did the exact right thing to grasp it. Also, it is written by somebody who purports to understand happiness for a sizable fraction of people. At least he causes happiness in a large number of people who laugh heartily at such a self-centered approach.
- philh 14y ago
  > it is written by somebody who purports to understand happiness for a sizable fraction of people. Why does that seem strange? There is a large body of research into human happiness. I haven't looked into it closely, but I would be surprised if it completely failed to generalise. It seems completely reasonable to me that someone could suggest "if you act like this rather than like that, you'll be happier" and be right about a majority of people. See for example: http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/ (This is a seperate question from whether the author of this particular article knows what he's talking about. I do not take a position on that.)
freyr 14y ago
After graduating with an engineering degree in a field I enjoy, and taking my first job, I soon began asking myself what's next. I grew up alongside many kids whose parents funneled them into the typical "dream careers": doctor, lawyer, finance (and other people who got there on their own). After quickly hitting my head on the (relatively low) glass ceiling, I wondered if I hadn't missed out on huge opportunities in life. I reconnected with one of these friends, and he told me his life wasn't perfect. He hadn't reached some state of perpetual bliss that I'd imagined. And he envied that I got to work on creative problems that provided constant challenge. Then he paid for lunch and drove off in his Porsche. If everyone can be happy or unhappy regardless of material things (as long as their basic needs are met), is it better to be rich and happy rather than middle-class and happy?
- kerryfalk 14y ago
  It's better to be happy than not happy. Rich/not is something different. I know many people in varying degrees along that scale and their happiness does not seem to be correlated to their wealth. Many in the lower end of the scale believe their happiness is tied to it, though.
  - cpeterso 14y ago
    This recent Princeton study found that income and happiness are correlated until $75,000, after which happiness is flat. http://wws.princeton.edu/news/Income_Happiness/ http://wws.princeton.edu/news/Income_Happiness/
  - uiri 14y ago
    When you say that happiness does not seem to be correlated to wealth do you mean that having a larger salary does not seem to be correlated to wealth or that having a more savings/less debt (to some extent this is two scales, to some extent it is one scale) does not seem to be correlated to wealth. I find it hard to think of someone whose annual income is in the 200k+ range but who is in massive debt as rich or wealthy. Similarly, someone whose annual income is below 50k but who has no debt, owns their own home free and clear and has massive savings could easily be thought of as wealthy. Of course, "massive" when talking about money is relative to income and debt/savings are likely to be orthogonal to happiness to a large extent. With regards to money and happiness, I think the Micawber principle states it best: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
Irregardless 14y ago
Are we reading the same post? I think you've missed the point entirely, or you made a conscious decision to ignore everything he wrote just so you could respond critically. He says nothing about trying to find the best of everything or making sure to squeeze every ounce of happiness out of every decision you make. He's saying people who are unhappy should stop and think about whether or not they're pursuing things that might make them happy in the major aspects of their lives (location, career, friends, hobbies, etc.). I don't buy into your BS about "learning to be happy with what you have" because it glosses over the whole "what you have" part, which is the crux of the issue. That's like asking miserable people "Have you tried being happy instead of being unhappy?" Brilliant. I'm sure you'll be a top contender for the Nobel Happiness Prize this year.
nicholas73 14y ago
I directly disagree with this post and take a naturalist approach. People aren't unhappy because they want more; they are unhappy because their basic needs aren't met. And by needs I don't mean material needs, but basic self realization needs. We actually need very little to be happy, but people now live their lives in way they were not designed to be. As a primordial tribesmen, all people needed were the love and camaraderie of their fellow tribesmen (ie work with close friends), enjoy the thrill of going out on a hunt and being recognized for success (self driven accomplishment and social status), find a mate and raise a family without being a wage slave (adequate free time, no boss), and other aspects of life where you are free to choose. Today's corporate world has none of these simple aspects. You don't get to choose your colleagues and often don't have anything in common with them. Your work is often assigned to you, and both recognition and reward is shifted towards the company or boss. You have a boss. You make money but all your time is taken away. You might argue we are materially better off, but biologically our brains our programmed to be happy in the old tribal way. Some of Paul Graham's essays talk about the same issues.
- jamesrcole 14y ago
  While I'm no expert on the matter that sounds like an awfully rose-coloured view of the life of a typical "primordial tribesman".
  - nicholas73 14y ago
    Yes it is, I'm glossing over what could have robbed the primordial tribesmen of the same satisfaction, such as a dominating chief, subjugation by neighbors, failure to contribute to your tribe and thus be demoted, environmental changes causing a hunter to resort to farming... There were challenges, but generally you had the opportunity to overcome them as the default path. Today the default path does not necessarily lead to self actualization. Many of us who post here happen to want the same thing: freelancing, side project income, small business, start up. This can't simply be a coincidence, and in my view what they have in common is the autonomy and accomplishment needs we have.
  - philh 14y ago
ShawnBird 14y ago
> Say you go on this quest to find the best city to live in. You find a good one, and you're not unhappy. But you'll always have that doubt: "What if I had quested just a little more? Would I have found an even better city?" And that'll bum you out. It becomes the anxiety of "what if". It's like looking for the 'perfect distro'. Just pick one and learn to love it.
nollidge 14y ago
Agreed. There's this sense that because a situation feels wrong, something actually IS wrong. But one must apply some rational checks to those notions, and see if the problem is really within rather than without.
xenen 14y ago
Well said. Although I think part of the article is saying that as people, we shouldn't be afraid of stepping outside of our comfort zones to try something new, even if on the surface it doesn't immediately look like it's gonna be "greener pasture". I think another thing to remember is that no matter how hard we try, it's not really possible to guarantee that our lives will always be "improving". Somewhere sometime we would all be better off learning to take the good with the bad - this will free us up to experiment and try new things without being completely reckless. As a result, I believe we'll all live more fulfilling lives.
michaelfeathers 14y ago
That is a very Buddhist perspective. The thing that is interesting to note is that the historical buddha seemed to have lived a life of excess before he figured that out. One could argue that many people have to in order to appreciate that point of view.
mauriziopd 14y ago
Maybe you shoudn't be looking for the best city to live in, just one better than the default choice... Improving just a bit on most of your defaults would compound to a great improvement in your life!
ganley 14y ago
Exactly. Furthermore, thinking that way prevents people from investing themselves in their current situation, so of course that situation is never fulfilling. As Buckaroo Banzai says: No matter where you go, there you are. See also: Optimizers vs. satisficers.
personlurking 14y ago
"Say you go on this quest to find the best city to live in. You find a good one, and you're not unhappy. But you'll always have that doubt: "What if I had quested just a little more? Would I have found an even better city?" And that'll bum you out. It becomes the anxiety of "what if"." I actually have 10 years experience with this. I've somewhat settled in one city (Rio) after all those years searching and moving. It's the best fit I've found but not the best in all categories. I think that's the best one can hope for, without turning it into a 20-yr quest...

by acabal 14y ago

breckenedge 14y ago

There's a great Ted talk by Shawn Achor that shares that point of view: http://on.ted.com/Achor http://on.ted.com/Achor

stephengillie 14y ago

These blog posts appeal to people looking for a "magic elixir" that will turn them into the ninja coder or elite haxor or bullet-dodging movie star that everyone wants to be. It's unrealistic, and comes from unambitious people who want to get the reward without completing the quest. Most of us can't just find what we're really looking for in life. It doesn't exist yet. We have to make the future, and that's a lot of difficult work.

matrix2002 14y ago

I agree. This blog post is a typical young adult way of looking at the world. Always chasing the new best way to live. Whether that is the best city, the best neighborhood, best car, best phone, best career, best company. This does not lead to happiness. Happiness is internal. If you become happy first from examining yourself internally, then you will naturally make decisions that will lead you to your goals. For example, if by looking inward and realizing that your goal for the next few years is to become a successful musician, you will probably gravitate to one of the major musical cities, LA, New York or Nashville. However, if you realize that being a family man and creating a healthy family is your real goal, then having a decent job in a nice suburb is probably where you will end up.

prawks 14y ago

I definitely agree. As a recent graduate, I was constantly plagued with thoughts like that. "Did I choose the right company? Area?" etc. It all comes down to, as you've alluded to, having perspective. I set a goal early in my undergraduate career to be in the very position I'm in today: working for a stable company with a lot of job security, and the ability to use it as a stepping stone in the event I'd like to take on more risk. It's when I remembered the fact that I set that goal and accomplished it fully that I regained the perspective that while the grass may be greener, my grass is already as green as I had always wanted it.

randomdata 14y ago
my grass is already as green as I had always wanted it. Which becomes its own struggle. Once you've hit an optimal shade of green, there is nothing left to do. Half of the enjoyment comes from actively working to make your proverbial lawn grow to be so green. Do you rip it up and start over to relive that enjoyment, or sit back and watch it grow?
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  The serial entrepreneur types tend to go make another lawn :P
- prawks 14y ago
  I like to imagine that career development is sitting back and watching it grow. Maybe adding a shrub here or there. (I'm not an entrepreneur, just a software engineer.)

martswite 14y ago

If I could up vote this all day I would, you put into words something that I've tried to express to many people over the years, but felt I never quite managed to make the point.

ef4 14y ago

I agree completely that happiness comes from within. And yet there is a duality that has always struck me as important, though hard to explain: it's easiest to be happy when you're striving toward a goal you believe in. But you need to keep your sense of self, your ego, non-attached to the outcome of the striving. That is, you need to invest yourself 100% into doing things that are important to you, but remain detached from whether you ultimately achieve what you wanted to achieve. I think Buddhists call this "skillful attachment".

hmbg 14y ago
"Skillful attachment", what a wonderful expression! Doesn't seem that widespread, google-wise, but it definitely goes in my decidedly not very Buddhistic list of rules to live by.
theorique 14y ago
Agreed. The idea is to act as if the outcome of what you were working on was the most important thing in the world to you, but to place no value on the actual outcome itself.
- thibauts 14y ago
  I think this can be put as "enjoy the process".
- jes 14y ago
  So, I should work to be a great spouse (say), but not care whether I actually achieve that outcome? Why not work to achieve things of value precisely because they are of value to you?
  - zaptheimpaler 14y ago
    Because you won't always achieve them. If you value the end result, it will be all the more disappointing if you fail to achieve it.
  - theorique 14y ago

brador 14y ago

The secretary problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

mogrim 14y ago
Not heard of that before, thanks for the link - interesting problem!

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mylons 14y ago

I've been struggling with this since graduating college. It's been 5 years now and it hasn't gotten any better until I reheard a John Lennon quote: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Some things are awful and you should get out -- but I imagine for a lot of us on this site we can chalk it up to first world problems and not living more in the moment.

richardlblair 14y ago

I can agree with this statement. I once read (I wish I could remember where, I'm reaching back 10 years here) that if happiness is your goal then you will never achieve it. You will be so busy "looking" for happiness that you will never realize that you are happy. Instead of making happiness you goal, a person should instead make tangible, achievable goals. Using your example of finding the best city to live in, you could define things that makes a city the best city for you. Good coffee shops, good people, lots of meetups, bars, schools.. the list can go on. Here are some great ted talks surrounding the topic: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch... http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psy...

ryanmolden 14y ago
A good read on this is [0], he calls it the hedonic treadmill, where you are always thinking that thing that will make you ultimately happy lies in your next goal achievement. [0] http://www.amazon.com/The-Joyless-Economy-Psychology-Satisfaction/dp/0195073479 http://www.amazon.com/The-Joyless-Economy-Psychology-Satisfa...

Nursie 14y ago

I have known a few people driven to distraction by this sort of thinking. "I will be happy when I get promoted/I buy a house/I move area/Some other future event happens", seems to me to be some sort of mental defence to justify being unhappy now, because obviously you can't be happy now because X hasn't happened yet. The event that's due to happen never makes them happy when it does happen though, they just make another event to pin their supposed future happiness to, all the while missing that life is happening now, friends and family and good times are around now. Perhaps it's part of the human condition.

jpdoctor 14y ago

> I don't like these kinds of posts, because they suggest that happiness is something just within our grasp, if only we did the exact right thing to grasp it. Also, it is written by somebody who purports to understand happiness for a sizable fraction of people. At least he causes happiness in a large number of people who laugh heartily at such a self-centered approach.

philh 14y ago
> it is written by somebody who purports to understand happiness for a sizable fraction of people. Why does that seem strange? There is a large body of research into human happiness. I haven't looked into it closely, but I would be surprised if it completely failed to generalise. It seems completely reasonable to me that someone could suggest "if you act like this rather than like that, you'll be happier" and be right about a majority of people. See for example: http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/ (This is a seperate question from whether the author of this particular article knows what he's talking about. I do not take a position on that.)

freyr 14y ago

After graduating with an engineering degree in a field I enjoy, and taking my first job, I soon began asking myself what's next. I grew up alongside many kids whose parents funneled them into the typical "dream careers": doctor, lawyer, finance (and other people who got there on their own). After quickly hitting my head on the (relatively low) glass ceiling, I wondered if I hadn't missed out on huge opportunities in life. I reconnected with one of these friends, and he told me his life wasn't perfect. He hadn't reached some state of perpetual bliss that I'd imagined. And he envied that I got to work on creative problems that provided constant challenge. Then he paid for lunch and drove off in his Porsche. If everyone can be happy or unhappy regardless of material things (as long as their basic needs are met), is it better to be rich and happy rather than middle-class and happy?

kerryfalk 14y ago
It's better to be happy than not happy. Rich/not is something different. I know many people in varying degrees along that scale and their happiness does not seem to be correlated to their wealth. Many in the lower end of the scale believe their happiness is tied to it, though.
- cpeterso 14y ago
  This recent Princeton study found that income and happiness are correlated until $75,000, after which happiness is flat. http://wws.princeton.edu/news/Income_Happiness/ http://wws.princeton.edu/news/Income_Happiness/
- uiri 14y ago
  When you say that happiness does not seem to be correlated to wealth do you mean that having a larger salary does not seem to be correlated to wealth or that having a more savings/less debt (to some extent this is two scales, to some extent it is one scale) does not seem to be correlated to wealth. I find it hard to think of someone whose annual income is in the 200k+ range but who is in massive debt as rich or wealthy. Similarly, someone whose annual income is below 50k but who has no debt, owns their own home free and clear and has massive savings could easily be thought of as wealthy. Of course, "massive" when talking about money is relative to income and debt/savings are likely to be orthogonal to happiness to a large extent. With regards to money and happiness, I think the Micawber principle states it best: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

Irregardless 14y ago

Are we reading the same post? I think you've missed the point entirely, or you made a conscious decision to ignore everything he wrote just so you could respond critically. He says nothing about trying to find the best of everything or making sure to squeeze every ounce of happiness out of every decision you make. He's saying people who are unhappy should stop and think about whether or not they're pursuing things that might make them happy in the major aspects of their lives (location, career, friends, hobbies, etc.). I don't buy into your BS about "learning to be happy with what you have" because it glosses over the whole "what you have" part, which is the crux of the issue. That's like asking miserable people "Have you tried being happy instead of being unhappy?" Brilliant. I'm sure you'll be a top contender for the Nobel Happiness Prize this year.

nicholas73 14y ago

I directly disagree with this post and take a naturalist approach. People aren't unhappy because they want more; they are unhappy because their basic needs aren't met. And by needs I don't mean material needs, but basic self realization needs. We actually need very little to be happy, but people now live their lives in way they were not designed to be. As a primordial tribesmen, all people needed were the love and camaraderie of their fellow tribesmen (ie work with close friends), enjoy the thrill of going out on a hunt and being recognized for success (self driven accomplishment and social status), find a mate and raise a family without being a wage slave (adequate free time, no boss), and other aspects of life where you are free to choose. Today's corporate world has none of these simple aspects. You don't get to choose your colleagues and often don't have anything in common with them. Your work is often assigned to you, and both recognition and reward is shifted towards the company or boss. You have a boss. You make money but all your time is taken away. You might argue we are materially better off, but biologically our brains our programmed to be happy in the old tribal way. Some of Paul Graham's essays talk about the same issues.

jamesrcole 14y ago
While I'm no expert on the matter that sounds like an awfully rose-coloured view of the life of a typical "primordial tribesman".
- nicholas73 14y ago
  Yes it is, I'm glossing over what could have robbed the primordial tribesmen of the same satisfaction, such as a dominating chief, subjugation by neighbors, failure to contribute to your tribe and thus be demoted, environmental changes causing a hunter to resort to farming... There were challenges, but generally you had the opportunity to overcome them as the default path. Today the default path does not necessarily lead to self actualization. Many of us who post here happen to want the same thing: freelancing, side project income, small business, start up. This can't simply be a coincidence, and in my view what they have in common is the autonomy and accomplishment needs we have.
- philh 14y ago

ShawnBird 14y ago

> Say you go on this quest to find the best city to live in. You find a good one, and you're not unhappy. But you'll always have that doubt: "What if I had quested just a little more? Would I have found an even better city?" And that'll bum you out. It becomes the anxiety of "what if". It's like looking for the 'perfect distro'. Just pick one and learn to love it.

nollidge 14y ago

Agreed. There's this sense that because a situation feels wrong, something actually IS wrong. But one must apply some rational checks to those notions, and see if the problem is really within rather than without.

xenen 14y ago

Well said. Although I think part of the article is saying that as people, we shouldn't be afraid of stepping outside of our comfort zones to try something new, even if on the surface it doesn't immediately look like it's gonna be "greener pasture". I think another thing to remember is that no matter how hard we try, it's not really possible to guarantee that our lives will always be "improving". Somewhere sometime we would all be better off learning to take the good with the bad - this will free us up to experiment and try new things without being completely reckless. As a result, I believe we'll all live more fulfilling lives.

michaelfeathers 14y ago

That is a very Buddhist perspective. The thing that is interesting to note is that the historical buddha seemed to have lived a life of excess before he figured that out. One could argue that many people have to in order to appreciate that point of view.

mauriziopd 14y ago

Maybe you shoudn't be looking for the best city to live in, just one better than the default choice... Improving just a bit on most of your defaults would compound to a great improvement in your life!

ganley 14y ago

Exactly. Furthermore, thinking that way prevents people from investing themselves in their current situation, so of course that situation is never fulfilling. As Buckaroo Banzai says: No matter where you go, there you are. See also: Optimizers vs. satisficers.

personlurking 14y ago

"Say you go on this quest to find the best city to live in. You find a good one, and you're not unhappy. But you'll always have that doubt: "What if I had quested just a little more? Would I have found an even better city?" And that'll bum you out. It becomes the anxiety of "what if"." I actually have 10 years experience with this. I've somewhat settled in one city (Rio) after all those years searching and moving. It's the best fit I've found but not the best in all categories. I think that's the best one can hope for, without turning it into a 20-yr quest...