[HN Gopher] If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy?
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If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy?
Author : sandes
Score : 55 points
Date : 2022-02-12 20:55 UTC (2 hours ago)
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| keiferski wrote:
| 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.
| ghoomketu wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Both success and satisfaction are more valuable to me than
| happiness.
| alimov wrote:
| So success and satisfaction are not the things that keep you
| feeling good/happy? I don't understand what you mean to say.
| dejj wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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
| serverholic wrote:
| 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, 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| dijit wrote:
| 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...
| dlsa wrote:
| 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. Maybe. The other reason
| is that mansions are status symbols and having the better one
| is always better.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Hah, joke's on you! I'm dumb AND unhappy.
| jcal93 wrote:
| 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.
| sidlls wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| emodendroket wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| e1g wrote:
| 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/ [2]
| https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJHD.2012...
| geek_at wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The hedonistic treadmill is real. Happiness has to come from
| within.
| JamesAdir wrote:
| This is from 2020. The title should be fixed.
| wenbin wrote:
| 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 .
| deltaonefour wrote:
| 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- wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.
| erikbye wrote:
| 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.
| BoumTAC wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Generally, the more intelligent you are, the more you can see
| behind the facade 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.
| ianai wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Happiness and anger are extremes. The goal in life should be
| contentment.
| CyanBird wrote:
| Very much agreed, that and thankfulness or a variation thereof
| amelius wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| 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.
| emodendroket wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| There is actually a good book with the exact same title.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Smart-Why-Arent-Happy/dp/B01DYF...
| seibelj wrote:
| 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.
| ruined wrote:
| seriously, does anyone know even one person who's happy
| [deleted]
| CyanBird wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| This reminded me of an old anecdote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Sounds like you're justifying your actions.
| extraAccount wrote:
| I think this is the most applicable case for most of us really.
| In my free-time I think of what better things I could be doing
| or working on, reading the news, new technologies, working or
| studying for my masters degree. Not exactly friend-making
| activities or memorable ones that you will think fondly of in
| the future. When I think back, its all a big blur of being all
| by myself, with a few actual memorable moments with people
| sprinkled in it.
|
| I compare myself to my brother, we both graduated and started
| our working lives. When I wake up in the weekend, all I can
| think about is all the work I need to do. When he wakes up, all
| he thinks about is going out, hiking, meeting new people. I
| think we are just wired that way.
| largbae wrote:
| This is what actually separates humans from animals: Humans are
| capable of being dissatisfied with _any_ situation, no matter how
| favorable.
| loves_mangoes wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > Like everything else, there is some truth to this. Generally,
| the more intelligent you are, the more you can see behind the
| facade 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.
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