What steps can a person actually take to really, genuinely win more, in the sense of “win” which most people take as their near-mode optimization target?
I suspect that happiness set-points mean that there isn’t really much you can do.
In fact probably one of the few ways to genuinely affect the total of well-being over your lifetime is to take seriously the notion that you have so little control over it: you’ll get depressed about it.
I recently read a book called 59 seconds which said that 50% of the variance in life satisfaction/happiness is directly genetically determined via your happiness set-point.
In fact the advice that the book gave was to just chill out about life, that by far the easiest way to improve your life is to frame it more positively.
What steps can a person actually take to really, genuinely win more, in the sense of “win” which most people take as their near-mode optimization target?
I suspect that happiness set-points mean that there isn’t really much you can do.
In fact probably one of the few ways to genuinely affect the total of well-being over your lifetime is to take seriously the notion that you have so little control over it: you’ll get depressed about it.
I recently read a book called 59 seconds which said that 50% of the variance in life satisfaction/happiness is directly genetically determined via your happiness set-point.
In fact the advice that the book gave was to just chill out about life, that by far the easiest way to improve your life is to frame it more positively.
Happiness is a sham; focus on satisfaction. There don’t seem to be satisfaction set points.
That said, I agree with what you seem to be saying- that optimization is a procedure that is itself subject to optimization.