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- Hacker News
- > 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.
by grvdrm - Related, earlier today:
The Price of Happiness (62 points, 32 comments)
by jader201 - 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...by HexPhantom
- 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.
by lobofta - 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.
- "Accept everything"by augustk
- Reader mode works. Just tested on Firefox on a pixel...by gib444
- You're right. I've used reader mode(the paper in the url bar in Firefox) to solve this.by petra
- 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.
by ncr100 - 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.
by Cthulhu_ - 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.
- Learn the whole system, then remove everything unnecessaryby HexPhantom
- Came in not expecting much, but those are all good points, expressed concisely.by two_handfuls
- None of the ideas are completely new, but putting them together this clearly makes them harder to dismiss and easier to rememberby HexPhantom
- This guy wrote zeromq message passing library.. He has also passed from this world. Dude had some great ideasby jrjrhrhrh
- "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.by imhoguy
- 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.
by virtualritz - 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.by haritha-j
- 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.by _kblcuk_
- Public transport makes commuting less wasteful, but I am not sure it makes a long commute freeby HexPhantom
- 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.
by tminima - 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
by 121789 - 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.
by aa-jv - 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.
by vladvasiliu - 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?
by warkdarrior - Yes, yes, and no.by glitchc
- 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.
by altmanaltman - Try circles instead of a square.
Not 1 and 0, but infinity.
You matter more than you think.
Very good book:
- 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.
by strken