[This is a broad category but has some distinct features that I think make it worth describing as a whole.]
Our civilization is grossly inadequate at providing personal happiness, and providing accurate information on how to achieve personal happiness.
This is “strange” because almost every human being “wants” to optimize for it in some sense or another. But of course reasoning soberly, you would expect it to be the case because there is almost no room for non-personal profit from being happy. Apparently people who make a profit sell only the symbolic representation of happiness, and the market seems saturated with this.
Agreed. I would further claim most sellers are not actually aware that they are just selling the representation.
The plain but known and studied “secret” to happiness is to adjust your expectations, refrain from unfavorable social comparisons and keep a gratitude journal or write gratitude letters to people (whether you choose to send them or not), which no ever one does. In my case watching a lot of nature and history documentaries on BBC and being aware on how everyone and everything tends to have a life a lot shittier than me helps keeping track of my relative fortune and put my minor miseries into a stark perspective.
Not being depressed or having some other mental illness helps a lot with happiness too I heard, but we can’t reliably help anyone with that.
[This is a broad category but has some distinct features that I think make it worth describing as a whole.]
Our civilization is grossly inadequate at providing personal happiness, and providing accurate information on how to achieve personal happiness.
This is “strange” because almost every human being “wants” to optimize for it in some sense or another. But of course reasoning soberly, you would expect it to be the case because there is almost no room for non-personal profit from being happy. Apparently people who make a profit sell only the symbolic representation of happiness, and the market seems saturated with this.
Agreed. I would further claim most sellers are not actually aware that they are just selling the representation.
The plain but known and studied “secret” to happiness is to adjust your expectations, refrain from unfavorable social comparisons and keep a gratitude journal or write gratitude letters to people (whether you choose to send them or not), which no ever one does. In my case watching a lot of nature and history documentaries on BBC and being aware on how everyone and everything tends to have a life a lot shittier than me helps keeping track of my relative fortune and put my minor miseries into a stark perspective.
Not being depressed or having some other mental illness helps a lot with happiness too I heard, but we can’t reliably help anyone with that.