A major source of unhappiness (or more generally, unpleasant feelings) seems to be violated expectations.
This is clearly based on instinctive expectations, not intellectual expectations, and there are many cases in which these come apart. This suggests that fixing those cases is a good way to make one’s life more pleasant.
The most extreme example of this is what Sam Harris said in a lesson: he was having some problems, complained about them to someone else, and that person basically told him, ‘why are you upset, did you expect to never face problems ever again?’. According to Sam, he did indeed expect no more problems to arise, on an instinctive level—which is, of course, absurd.
I think there are lots of other cases where this still happens. Misunderstandings are a big one. It’s ridiculously hard to not be misunderstood, and I expect to be misunderstood on an intellectual level, so I should probably internalize that I’m going to be misunderstood in many cases. In general, anything where the bad thing is ‘unfair’ is at risk here: (I think) I tend to have the instinctive expectation that unfair things don’t happen, even though they happen all the time.
I just posted about this but is that not why the serenity prayer or saying is so popular? GOD aside whether you are a religious or God person or not the sentiment or logic of the saying holds true—God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. You should be allowed to ask yourself for that same courage. And I agree that most sources of unhappiness seems to be a violation of expectations. There are many things outside of ones controls and one should perhaps make their expectations logically based on that fact.
A major source of unhappiness (or more generally, unpleasant feelings) seems to be violated expectations.
This is clearly based on instinctive expectations, not intellectual expectations, and there are many cases in which these come apart. This suggests that fixing those cases is a good way to make one’s life more pleasant.
The most extreme example of this is what Sam Harris said in a lesson: he was having some problems, complained about them to someone else, and that person basically told him, ‘why are you upset, did you expect to never face problems ever again?’. According to Sam, he did indeed expect no more problems to arise, on an instinctive level—which is, of course, absurd.
Another case where I’ve mostly succeeded is not expecting people to be on time for anything.
I think there are lots of other cases where this still happens. Misunderstandings are a big one. It’s ridiculously hard to not be misunderstood, and I expect to be misunderstood on an intellectual level, so I should probably internalize that I’m going to be misunderstood in many cases. In general, anything where the bad thing is ‘unfair’ is at risk here: (I think) I tend to have the instinctive expectation that unfair things don’t happen, even though they happen all the time.
I just posted about this but is that not why the serenity prayer or saying is so popular? GOD aside whether you are a religious or God person or not the sentiment or logic of the saying holds true—God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. You should be allowed to ask yourself for that same courage. And I agree that most sources of unhappiness seems to be a violation of expectations. There are many things outside of ones controls and one should perhaps make their expectations logically based on that fact.