I’m not sure how to ask this… but is anyone like really and genuinely happy on a day-to-day basis? Hour-to-hour? I’m curious as to what the upper bounds of human happiness are. In my 22 years experience of observing humans, I can’t recall anyone I’ve ever met who appeared to be “really and genuinely” happy on a day-to-day basis. Everyone I’ve ever met seems to be what I’d describe as “chugging along”.
Another way to possibly pose my thought—assume that I’m average, and consider the top 10% of my experiences to be Happiness. Does anyone’s median experience fall within my top 10%?
I was overall happy with my life up to age 12. This was probably a bad thing.
I managed to replace happiness with smug indignation for the next ~8 years.
Ever since, I’ve pretty much been waiting for a miracle. Oh, I try and create one from time to time, but it never works. Trying less because it inevitably ends in failure.
I feel like I really do need a miracle or three to be generally happy again. At absolute minimum, a means to defeat Akrasia would go a long way.
I am. There are exactly zero humans with whom I would seriously consider changing situations under the most charitable of circumstances and I frequently just giggle about how awesome (perhaps not wrath of God literal use of awesome but not these fries are awesome level either) my life is. How can I be of assistance?
Oh great question; it’s pretty close to my median. There’s not much room for improvement, and even my annual top three isn’t that far off said median. There’s not much cause for me to worry about anything (no known medical problems, been at kids and causes since before I started thinking about finances, just got married) and I am very content going for walks and thinking big thoughts about the world. Sorry,I feel like you were looking for more detail; please feel free to follow up.
I would characterize my 90th percentile experience as a profound sense of peace and contentment, a combination of emotional satisfaction with physical comfort and security. This comes from good brain chemistry (cheerful, optimistic outlook), favorable life circumstances (happily married, no major illnesses, financially stable), and a sustainable enjoyment of katastematic pleasure.
I’d say I’m very far from ‘chugging along’—I have ups and downs, I’m high-energy, etc. But I do have worries, anxieties, bouts of sadness, so I’m not sure how to quantify how ‘truly happy’ I am.
I feel ‘average’ from the inside, but when I compare my external behavior to others’, I often look like I have deeper reservoirs of energy, enthusiasm, patience, adaptiveness-to-pain, adaptiveness-to-disaster, etc. That makes me think I’m cognitively and affectively privileged in ways that give me an above-average number of spoons, wherewithal tokens, stamina points, etc.
I would guess that my median experiences are in the top 15% of a typical American’s experiences, but I’m not confident because it might be that people are still having a pretty fun time in absolute subjective terms even when they act grumpy.
I can’t recall anyone I’ve ever met who appeared to be “really and genuinely” happy on a day-to-day basis.
I think I’ve met at least one man like this, and several women. I describe myself as “content,” and having a remarkably narrow emotional range, which seems like it might be cheerier than “chugging along” but perhaps that’s the wrong dimension to compare them on.
I have a stable, comfortable and pretty satisfying life. Overall I feel I’m pretty happy all the time, although there are of course times when I’m worried or a little bit anxious, and when I’m extatic or overly enthusiast with something.
I think that I have the capacity to be genuinely happy on a day-to-day basis.
There are times when I’m generally on top of things. I’ve got my GTD system functioning, I’ve got an exercise/food/sleep routine that I like. I’ve “goal-factored” and feel like I know what I’m doing with my life. ETC. All that really remains for me to do in times like these is to DO things.
Though, I would say that I don’t feel like this too often. For the past few months, I’ve felt somewhat anxious/uncertain about what my life plans were. So, I wasn’t as happy on a day to day basis. But, I feel like in the long-run, I’ll be able to get into the “on top of things” state more consistently.
There are days when I am more happy, and days whan I am less happy. I can imagine having those good days more frequently, or less frequently. For example during vacation I usually mostly have the good days. Since most of my unhappiness comes from various smaller and greater frustrations at work, I believe that e.g. winning a lottery could improve my life significantly. (There are also other possible solution I could think of; the lottery is just an easy example.)
If I could have more autonomy about how I spend my days, and if I would be rational enough to spend a lot of that time with people I like, I believe I would be genuinely happy on a day-to-day basis.
My impression is that for a lot of people, much of their unhappiness comes from things that happen at work (and from the mere fact of having to do it at all). And yet the available evidence suggests that winning a big lottery prize doesn’t typically make people all that much happier.
An obvious explanation is that we get annoyed whenever anything fails to go as we hope it will, and giving up work just means that instead of being frustrated by random inconveniences at work you’d be similarly frustrated by random inconveniences on your yacht, or wherever you were instead of working.
Of course that explanation might be wrong—but although my experience is comparable to yours, I am inclined to be much less confident that my happiness would be hugely increased by not having to work.
By the way, different people may react differently to the same situation. Just talked about it with my girlfriend: When we go on a vacation, we are both very happy on the first day. After a few days, I am still approximately as happy as at the beginning, while her happiness returns to the default state. So, we react differently to the same situation. (Maybe the difference is only a matter of speed, that she returns to the default state in a week, while it could take a month or more for me. Maybe not.)
Another similarity I have noticed between me and some people around me is about spending money. Some people, when they get more money, they find something expensive to spend it on, so even if you double their salary, at the end of the month they have nothing left. My spending does not increase with my income (at least not so quickly); if you double my salary, I will just leave the extra amount in the bank.
I don’t know if there is a pattern here or I am just imagining things, but seems to me that both of these differences suggest that I know what I want, and that I am really happy when I achieve it. While other people probably only have a vague idea of “more” and “better”, and when they get it, they still want something “more” and “better”. Satisficer vs maximizer mentality, maybe?
Seems to me there are things that predictably make my mood better, such as talking with people I like, or taking a walk. When I imagine a day where I would work a few hours on my own project at my own pace, then take a walk, then talk with my friends (or take a walk with my friends and talk while walking), I cannot imagine how such day could make me feel other than happy. (On the other hand, my girlfriend’s life is very similar to this, and it did not make her happy. But as I said, there are also other differences between us.) I could imagine that also for me this happiness could hypothetically change in a sufficiently long time, but I believe it would make me happy all day long for at least six months.
the available evidence suggests that winning a big lottery prize doesn’t typically make people all that much happier.
Maybe typically people use their winnings in a wrong way. For example, they buy an expensive car, go to an expensive vacation, etc. And a year later, there is nothing left. And they know they will probably never win the lottery again.
It would be interesting to have a data on a subset which instead of doing this does something smart, such as retire early. Or some other big change in their life, for example pay for education they didn’t have, so even when the money is gone, their everyday life remains different.
I’m not sure how to ask this… but is anyone like really and genuinely happy on a day-to-day basis? Hour-to-hour? I’m curious as to what the upper bounds of human happiness are. In my 22 years experience of observing humans, I can’t recall anyone I’ve ever met who appeared to be “really and genuinely” happy on a day-to-day basis. Everyone I’ve ever met seems to be what I’d describe as “chugging along”.
Another way to possibly pose my thought—assume that I’m average, and consider the top 10% of my experiences to be Happiness. Does anyone’s median experience fall within my top 10%?
I was overall happy with my life up to age 12. This was probably a bad thing.
I managed to replace happiness with smug indignation for the next ~8 years.
Ever since, I’ve pretty much been waiting for a miracle. Oh, I try and create one from time to time, but it never works. Trying less because it inevitably ends in failure.
I feel like I really do need a miracle or three to be generally happy again. At absolute minimum, a means to defeat Akrasia would go a long way.
I am. There are exactly zero humans with whom I would seriously consider changing situations under the most charitable of circumstances and I frequently just giggle about how awesome (perhaps not wrath of God literal use of awesome but not these fries are awesome level either) my life is. How can I be of assistance?
Oh no, it’s Felix! Get him before he enslaves us all!
(http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2569)
That comic was an excellent depiction of a ‘utility monster’.
It sounds like your median experience is somewhere around my 90th percentile experience. So what’s your 90th percentile experience like?
Oh great question; it’s pretty close to my median. There’s not much room for improvement, and even my annual top three isn’t that far off said median. There’s not much cause for me to worry about anything (no known medical problems, been at kids and causes since before I started thinking about finances, just got married) and I am very content going for walks and thinking big thoughts about the world. Sorry,I feel like you were looking for more detail; please feel free to follow up.
I’m in a similar range to Ixiel.
I would characterize my 90th percentile experience as a profound sense of peace and contentment, a combination of emotional satisfaction with physical comfort and security. This comes from good brain chemistry (cheerful, optimistic outlook), favorable life circumstances (happily married, no major illnesses, financially stable), and a sustainable enjoyment of katastematic pleasure.
I’d say I’m very far from ‘chugging along’—I have ups and downs, I’m high-energy, etc. But I do have worries, anxieties, bouts of sadness, so I’m not sure how to quantify how ‘truly happy’ I am.
I feel ‘average’ from the inside, but when I compare my external behavior to others’, I often look like I have deeper reservoirs of energy, enthusiasm, patience, adaptiveness-to-pain, adaptiveness-to-disaster, etc. That makes me think I’m cognitively and affectively privileged in ways that give me an above-average number of spoons, wherewithal tokens, stamina points, etc.
I would guess that my median experiences are in the top 15% of a typical American’s experiences, but I’m not confident because it might be that people are still having a pretty fun time in absolute subjective terms even when they act grumpy.
I think I’ve met at least one man like this, and several women. I describe myself as “content,” and having a remarkably narrow emotional range, which seems like it might be cheerier than “chugging along” but perhaps that’s the wrong dimension to compare them on.
I have a stable, comfortable and pretty satisfying life. Overall I feel I’m pretty happy all the time, although there are of course times when I’m worried or a little bit anxious, and when I’m extatic or overly enthusiast with something.
I think that I have the capacity to be genuinely happy on a day-to-day basis.
There are times when I’m generally on top of things. I’ve got my GTD system functioning, I’ve got an exercise/food/sleep routine that I like. I’ve “goal-factored” and feel like I know what I’m doing with my life. ETC. All that really remains for me to do in times like these is to DO things.
Though, I would say that I don’t feel like this too often. For the past few months, I’ve felt somewhat anxious/uncertain about what my life plans were. So, I wasn’t as happy on a day to day basis. But, I feel like in the long-run, I’ll be able to get into the “on top of things” state more consistently.
There are days when I am more happy, and days whan I am less happy. I can imagine having those good days more frequently, or less frequently. For example during vacation I usually mostly have the good days. Since most of my unhappiness comes from various smaller and greater frustrations at work, I believe that e.g. winning a lottery could improve my life significantly. (There are also other possible solution I could think of; the lottery is just an easy example.)
If I could have more autonomy about how I spend my days, and if I would be rational enough to spend a lot of that time with people I like, I believe I would be genuinely happy on a day-to-day basis.
My impression is that for a lot of people, much of their unhappiness comes from things that happen at work (and from the mere fact of having to do it at all). And yet the available evidence suggests that winning a big lottery prize doesn’t typically make people all that much happier.
An obvious explanation is that we get annoyed whenever anything fails to go as we hope it will, and giving up work just means that instead of being frustrated by random inconveniences at work you’d be similarly frustrated by random inconveniences on your yacht, or wherever you were instead of working.
Of course that explanation might be wrong—but although my experience is comparable to yours, I am inclined to be much less confident that my happiness would be hugely increased by not having to work.
By the way, different people may react differently to the same situation. Just talked about it with my girlfriend: When we go on a vacation, we are both very happy on the first day. After a few days, I am still approximately as happy as at the beginning, while her happiness returns to the default state. So, we react differently to the same situation. (Maybe the difference is only a matter of speed, that she returns to the default state in a week, while it could take a month or more for me. Maybe not.)
Another similarity I have noticed between me and some people around me is about spending money. Some people, when they get more money, they find something expensive to spend it on, so even if you double their salary, at the end of the month they have nothing left. My spending does not increase with my income (at least not so quickly); if you double my salary, I will just leave the extra amount in the bank.
I don’t know if there is a pattern here or I am just imagining things, but seems to me that both of these differences suggest that I know what I want, and that I am really happy when I achieve it. While other people probably only have a vague idea of “more” and “better”, and when they get it, they still want something “more” and “better”. Satisficer vs maximizer mentality, maybe?
Seems to me there are things that predictably make my mood better, such as talking with people I like, or taking a walk. When I imagine a day where I would work a few hours on my own project at my own pace, then take a walk, then talk with my friends (or take a walk with my friends and talk while walking), I cannot imagine how such day could make me feel other than happy. (On the other hand, my girlfriend’s life is very similar to this, and it did not make her happy. But as I said, there are also other differences between us.) I could imagine that also for me this happiness could hypothetically change in a sufficiently long time, but I believe it would make me happy all day long for at least six months.
Maybe typically people use their winnings in a wrong way. For example, they buy an expensive car, go to an expensive vacation, etc. And a year later, there is nothing left. And they know they will probably never win the lottery again.
It would be interesting to have a data on a subset which instead of doing this does something smart, such as retire early. Or some other big change in their life, for example pay for education they didn’t have, so even when the money is gone, their everyday life remains different.
I agree: that would be extremely interesting.