#happiness (7 links)
- I set out to find the happiness I felt as a child, and it worked – let me tell you how I did it | Joseph Coelho theguardian.com
When I remember being very young, moments of intense happiness stand out – happiness that came from just curling up in bed, or playing a game with friends, or flicking through a book about beachcombing. As I got older, that simple, deep happiness became harder and harder to achieve as new emotions and adult responsibilities settled in. In many ways, my attempts at happiness in adulthood have been attempts to get back to that uncomplicated feeling of relaxation and pleasure.
The triangle of happiness is a simplification of the main factors that tend to drive most people in their jobs. Put simply, if you're not satisfied with at least 2 of the 3 points of the triangle, your overall job satisfaction is in real question.
- > Unproductive pleasures pall eventually. After a while you get tired of lying o... | Hacker News news.ycombinator.com
There may certainly be things you'd find more fulfilling. But if you need to do stuff to be happy, you are letting yourself suffer from attachments to things that more the most part are relatively inconsequential.
PG's essay suffers from this assumption that happiness is tied to achievements.
I used to think that too. The problem with that line of thinking is that it often leads to putting the shutters on and focusing on getting stuff done to get your happiness from it eventually, while ignoring all the sources of happiness around you. Further, that makes procrastination worse, in my experience: It creates guilt that you're picking the short term pleasures instead of doing the stuff you're sure will make you fabulously happy later, once you've just achieved something.
These days, I still get stuff done - more than ever, in fact -, but I might suddenly stop during my commute and look up at the clouds and enjoy the sight, or just close my eyes for 10 seconds and enjoy the calm, and I'm happy whether or not I'm doing anything. The two are not related. If you can't be happy even while doing the dishes, or fighting your way onto a commuter train, or carrying out some mind-numbingly boring menial work, you're missing out.
- 10 Simple Things You Can Do Today That Will Make You Happier, Backed By Science social-consciousness.com
Via paul.irish.
- Action for Happiness actionforhappiness.org
- Nine Things Developers Want More Than Money | Software by Rob softwarebyrob.com
More money isn't one of them.