Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)
hintjens.com175 points by emerongi 12 hours ago
175 points by emerongi 12 hours ago
> 4. Be part of bigger things
> Being part of bigger things makes us feel valued. Find communities and projects to be part of. Start your own. It could be online or in the real world.
Make sure the groups don't get politically active one way or the other. Today's social landscape is made significantly worse by political polarization dragged to the extreme - fuelled by short form content silos and bubbles. (Tiktok, Instagram, etc.)
Ban politics strictly in the spaces you create, and don't be part of the ones that lean one way or the other - unless you are actively looking to take part in politics.
This was not the case even ten years ago. But now, is.
I think this is wildly wrongheaded. The socially polite "no politics" is a critical insulator allowing normally non-socially acceptable behavior to grow.
I am convinced it is those in power not wanting an informed populace.
We are not in uninteresting times. People need to be engaging in world around them, not ignoring it.
A: "My neighbors are scared"
B: "Don't talk about that, we might get testy because I think your neighbors should be scared."
The way to cause effective local change among people you know is to build meaningful relationships with low hostility and psychological safety. They will figure out your political opinions with time, and they will be subtly but durably influenced.
Jamming it into conversations with strong moral judgement attached to the opinion will make people dislike you, and it will not influence people who disagree with you. It will make them harden in their existing views because the emotional awfulness of what you are saying reinforces how correct they have been to have held those views.
I had to tell my parents to stop talking about politics because it was making me dislike them.
They weren’t informed citizens, they were just regurgitating whatever they happened to read in their newspaper that day.
If you pushed them on anything they said they didn’t really have any understanding beneath the headlines they had read.
It would be better for them if they could disengage from it but they don’t seem to want to.
There is nothing good coming out from their engagement.
So no discussion happened and they were left uninformed? I talk through things with my family and share different takes and sources. Some are unhinged and called out. But usually there is lots of common ground. And sometimes changed options.
No single raindrop believes it to be blamed for the flood.
Discussion did take place. There is only so much you can do though.
I’m glad it worked for you but in my case it didn’t.
Ultimately people who continually drag the conversation around to politics just aren’t very nice to be around.
Sounds like you could use some time in a group that bans discussion of politics.
Inquiry: what do you define as politics?
Example: is a trans person in your community political for using their preferred pronouns? Going to their preferred bathroom? Is a gay person political for mentioning their same sex spouse? Is an immigrant political for discussing their immigration process (“sorry can’t make it I have an apt with the embassy”)? Is tits or gtfo political?
I’m not trying to be contrarian this is simply my experiences running like a board game group or something. It’s easy to say no politics but then someone’s normal (eg. My name is Helen, where’s the woman’s restroom?) can cause someone to refuse (“that is clearly a man”!) and now you have a mess on your hands as an organizer.
Maybe it starts when some people start to apply some power on other people ? But all your examples are people talking about themselves : their own lives, their own choices, their own specifics, their own struggles. I would say people can have all this and mention it as long as it stays on the fringe and does not become a topic to debate. This would be outside the scope of the group.
Maybe other people should avoid commenting on peoples life / choices / specifics / struggles, and the atmosphere may stay nice.
For me personally the line is crossed when you start making judgments.
Having an appointment with the embassy is not political. Saying the government shouldn’t force people to go to the embassy is.
> sorry, wont make it. Appointment.
Ok
> sorry, wont make it. Stupid appointment.
Banned!
Politics in groups is like pornography
You can't define it but you know it when you see it
Admittedly I don't have much life wisdom, but my strong intuition is happiness is a measure, not a target, and you shouldn't optimize for it. All this "science of happiness" talk feels, I don't know, spiritually offputting.
We're closed loop systems, and happiness (momentary, long-term, + variants) are guidance signals from evolution. You don't have to optimize for it, but it's worth understanding the dozen or so real signals that "happiness" as a concept masks.
I believe that living a happy life is a long term survival strategy. Producing offsprings is the other way. If we feel miserable, we want to cut our life short or it will be due to many problems, bad health included. Long term happiness is a very good measure of how good your life is going. So while we might not agree on whether we should optimize our lives for happiness, it's certainly an objective we should always consider. However, we should not confuse happiness with pleasure. One is meant for the long term, while the other is ephemeral.
Why exactly should someone acknowledge their unhappiness but then do nothing about it?
Because we have a limited amount of time and energy and other things might be more valuable to us. tbh, even this list kind of leans toward improving other measures as a means of increasing happiness. You could just write the article as "things to improve in your life", and then at the end go "oh yeah, and you'll probably be a bit happier too".
> even this list kind of leans toward improving other measures as a means of increasing happiness
Since we don't have direct access to happiness dial, every advice for increasing happiness is going to be like that.
I cant' believe it's almost 10 years since he died. My favorite quote of his is "Who needs a bucket list when you have love?”
I wish more people would take his ideas seriously, especially his "Collective Code Construction Contract".
I learned about 0mq a few years back, found myself wondering why it had such an air of quality. Then I found Hitnjens' writing, only to learn that he had been gone for a while. I was surprised by my sense of loss.
"explore the world without desire"
I don't know how I feel about this. I know when I can manage to accept things I feel better overall, but there is real joy in getting what you wanted - in doing something you enjoy, and realising that you're enjoying it while you're doing it, and rejoicing in that
Detachment is all very well, but attachment brings higher highs as well as lower lows
From my own experience, it is about lowering expectations, not detachement. World is full of things and processes I can't control, experiencing them without expectations gives me peace and joy, and I attach to them then in such blissful state.
> 7. Ground Your Emotions
Yup. But also - no shame and guilt for experiencing them.
And, your expectations of happiness. Something I’m recently internalizing more than I did in the past: happiness is not a constant state. There are happy moments and unhappy moments in life.
I think the search for a constant happiness is what drives feeling unhappy. It’s this blob-like goal.
For me, working on recognizing and being ok with the ups and downs has produced the happiest state of my life.
The one thing I'd put in context is "don't waste time on commuting".
In Europe for sure and possibly many parts of Asia like Japan or bigger metropolises in China etc. most people will commute by public transport.
You can read. Whenever I had a job where I commuted at least an hour a day, the number of books I read, per month, went from 2–3 to 10 or more.
In the Paris area, if you commute during rush hour, you'll probably been stuck between 100 people per square meter. At best, you can listen to some podcasts or audiobooks.
When I still had to work from the office, I was fortunate enough to be able to move my hours earlier so I could avoid morning rush hour and could, indeed, read in the morning. Afternoons I couldn't, more often than not.
It was just wasted time. I can also read on my couch before I start working from home. I've read many more books since I was able to WFH on most days.
I agree with you as long as it's passive commuting (NOT driving). I had a few jobs / cities with long (45+ minute) commutes and I also got a ton of reading done that I wouldn't I wouldn't normally
My experience is that for people with kids, this benefit basically disappears and they want every spare second they can get
Or listen to podcasts/audio books. Helps when the commute involves traveling in crowded trains/busses during peak times.
You can cover a lot of ground while listening to podcasts. And diversity in podcasts is huge.
Public transport makes commuting less wasteful, but I am not sure it makes a long commute free
Definitely not; I'm looking at a possible new job, but public transit to get there is an hour and a half. Even though they only ask you to be in the office two days a week, that's 6 hours a week I won't get back.
I mean I still want to apply to the job to see if they offer me a significant step up in terms of wages (doubtful), but I'd rather have something closer to home.
Can confirm .. I grew up in a country (Australia) which is practically impossible to live in, without a car .. then I moved to California and did everything I could to avoid the commutes (really a very difficult task), lived there for 15 years and only managed to optimize my life to be able to walk around LA/my neighborhood in the last few years of it .. then moved to Japan for a year, where everything I needed to survive was within a 10 minute walk of my apartment - and then to Austria, in a city that was laid out a thousand years ago to be navigable by foot, and still is.
Commuting is one of the worst aspects of the Western world. The fact that hundreds of millions of people have to sit in their cars, for hours every day, to get to work/play/live, is just a tragedy. I truly hope the next hundred years proves much, much more fruitful for those of us who are willing to change lifestyles to avoid the commute. Its a huge drag.
this is a good reminder for me. I just switched from a 5 minute cycle commute to a 20 minute cycle commute. Time to break out some audio books.
It's great if you can do that -- some people (I, for one) get such heavy nausea from reading in any kind of transport that the only thing I can do is listen to the music and look at the clouds.
Came in not expecting much, but those are all good points, expressed concisely.
This guy wrote zeromq message passing library.. He has also passed from this world. Dude had some great ideas
None of the ideas are completely new, but putting them together this clearly makes them harder to dismiss and easier to remember
I upped the font size on my Pixel recently and this is one of those sites where (in Firefox) the sidebar takes up more than 50% of the width of the screen and retains tiny text while the article itself wraps on a couple words per line.
In the sprit of the article, "grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
Mentioning these things in a comment is neither accepting of how it is nor changing it. You can't change the site - the author died. You can change your browser or reading mode or whatever. Or you can just accept it is the way it is.
You're right. I've used reader mode(the paper in the url bar in Firefox) to solve this.
1. Invest in your senses
I see you noticing a thing, with your senses. Sincerely:
A (used) folding phone offers 66% body content, 33% sidebar. Is a noticeable improvement.
Maybe things have changed since I was an Android dev in 2013, but I buy Pixel devices because I don't expect something to work well on most Android devices if it doesn't work well on a Pixel.
I'm willing to switch between Chrome and Firefox. On Chrome I get 66% body content I can't read. It's one of the reasons I stopped using Chrome.
I just use the reader mode built into my browser. 100% content.
I don't want large phone though. I'd prefer to have a less appealling small phone that encourages me to spend more time off it.
Related, earlier today:
The Price of Happiness (62 points, 32 comments)
The one part I struggle with is -accept everything-. Acceptance helps with what cannot be changed, but I have also become happier by refusing to accept certain jobs, habits, relationships...
Everything that is present can not be changed in the current moment. It already is. Therefore accept everything that already is.
That is deeply compatible with using your energy to create a better world for yourself and others.
This is what he meant I believe. Sure, you can work towards change, but today, right now, it is what it is and don’t let that get in the way of your being happy.
Shortly before he passed during his AMA he offered some advice I try to follow.
Me
This doesn't really relate to psychopaths but I just wanted to say I've been a follower of yours for years since I discovered your state machine language, multi-threaded kernel and web server back in the 90's. The AMQP / ZMQ work you've done is inspiring. How do you do it?
Pieterh
Well, thank you! :)
I don't know how my brain works, but it likes to take huge, complex situations, learn them inside and out, and then and find simple paths through them. I've always done this since I was young. In software, that means writing simple things that solve large problems, well. In writing, this means explaining mind-boggling things in simple words.
It does take time.
I was just reminiscing about an old Pieter Hintjens post with my kids yesterday. They still hold up. RIP
(Needs a 2016 in the title)
wozniak simple formula i quite like : H = S − F: your Happiness on any given day is your count of Smiles minus your count of Frowns
Steve Wozniak is a present that helps me keep this equation on the positive side every time I stumble upon something he said or done. This included. In an alternate universe the society values these kinds of people and not the bullies.
I have been trying to square such suggestions for happiness with G.B. Shaw's quote:
> "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
The steps towards happiness basically require accepting the world as is and appreciating it as is. Does that mean happy people are reasonable? And if they are, does that mean that happy people do not drive progress? Are there happy AND unreasonable people?
You can appreciate the world and still do Hard Work to make it better - definitely not mutually exclusive. Be unreasonable. Be Progressive.
Temper it all with Desiderata[0], since we’re being philosophical.
That quote is from a play, and was written by a character who is a revolutionary and an anarchist.
In a meta-sense, I don't think G.B. Shaw intended this quote to be taken as an absolute truth by the audience.
And, even taking the quote itself at face value (pretending the fictional character who wrote it was a real person), I think it's referring mostly to political progress. Indeed, most times that political institutions have been upended, it was by people who were not happy with the status quo. But I think that's a different sort of unhappiness from the unhappiness of not being satisfied with your life.
It's not a binary choice, but a spectrum. It depends on the scope and your own abilities - you can't turn a river around with a stick, but you can clean up your part of the lawn. Keep control over what you can control, and don't get too upset about what you can't - so with a little effort you change (or progress) a little part of the world.
Funnily enough I also know some happy people who adhere to none of these points.
> you can't turn a river around with a stick
Somebody forgot to tell this[0] guy.
That's a lot of rock.
It is a thing with humans. We :
1. overestimate how much we can do in a short amount of time.
2. underestimate how much we can do incrementally over a long amount of time.
Someone should put this somewhere. In a book or a poster. On a LinkedIn post for managers
I'm not religious nor a recovering alcoholic, but I've always liked the serenity prayer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer.
Obviously it is unreasonable to continue walking with a stone in your boot because you want to adapt to it; equally obviously it is unreasonable to expect your boots to last forever without repair.
One can be content or happy without being complacent. Also finding peace with what you have can open motivation to make change. The discontent of one’s current situation can be debilitating and demotivating so removing the mood or feeling can actually enable action.
But then what you put effort in will resonate with you and not be the same as what you would do when trying to chase something to impress someone outside.
There is this strange paradox of accepting a situation enables changing it. I hope others who read this who understand it better will share their more lucid insights.
I mean you have to ask what does unreasonable mean in this context?
Because in a literal meaning, that basically puts both John Carmack and Adolf Hitler in the same "unreasonable men" bucket. Both had ideas for the "world" and adapted it to themselves.
But I don't think we should read it that way. Also you should never take one philosopher's idea and only follow it in isolation. Every great thinker has massive blind spots and it's always better to think for yourself and read opinions that may counter each other.
Also I don't think its as simple as to be happy you must accept the world and be a passive host and make no changes. In fact, many would argue you get real happiness when you pursue something bigger than yourself and in those pursuits, we usually make progress.
More so, do you think Hitler was unhappy? Are you saying every unreasonable person that makes progress is unhappy? That clearly cannot be true.
In fact, your question should be answered by what is happiness rather than how to be happy. And the answer can be complciated. No 10 list guide can truly help you unravel the actual human pysche and what makes you you but it can act as markers and make you think if done properly.
> More so, do you think Hitler was unhappy?
Yes, he killed himself in the end. If the question is whether he was always unhappy, well, I'm sure there were happy points in his life.
Negative happiness. For Hitler, being captured alive and utterly humiliated in front of the world's jury as it were, must have been a prospect too horrible to contemplate. Happiness with a coefficient of -10 as against maybe -5 immediately prior to death by poison + gunshot. His and probably everybody else's choice and as in his case, something for dictators to ponder.
>Don't take it all too seriously, we all die.
Wise wisdoms overall, to have this particular advise from someone who has passed away just hit a different notes.
There's an old Chinese proverbs on being happy:
"If you want to be happy for an hour, take a nap. If you want to be happy for a day, go fishing. If you want to be happy for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, help someone else".
He was not writing abstractly about mortality; he knew exactly what it meant
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