The Happiness Hypothesis
Applies the latest findings in psychology and brain research to the wisdom of the ancients to define what makes people happy and how you can find more happiness in your life. Confirms and builds on the happiness formula defined by other psychologists: H=S+C+V or Happiness = your biological Setpoint + the Conditions of your life + the Voluntary activities you do
Stats for nerds
40recommend
87mentions
51people
2008–2026years
71% recommend29% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- If you enjoyed TRM, his other book The Happiness Hypothesis surprisingly covers this and other concepts in much better detail relative to the OP.
- There is a nice book by Jonathan Haidt about this called The Happiness Hypothesis.
He uses a "Elephant and Rider" psychological metaphor to describe the internal battle between our rational mind (the rider) and our emotional, intuitive drives (the elephant).
We think the rider is in control. But he isn’t!
- Oh a 20 year dip is new to me.
Here's a few cherry picked studies[1] there's a _bump_ in happiness that regresses to pre-kiddo levels permanently.
[2] Happy people with money have more kids, and people who have kids after 30 and with non-poverty wages are happier.
1. https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2012-013.pdf
2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5505668/
3. bonus: A heavily biased study showing overall increases https://ifstudies.org/blog/life-with-kids-is-better-analyzin...
There's a decent book on the baseline phenomenon called Happiness Hypothesis: Largely speaking you'll return to baseline levels of subjective wellbeing, but recall that fufillment is not subjective wellbeing.
Of course if you read The Atlantic (the same magazine that tells you to throw your kids art away and never get married, they'll say the opposite [4]
4. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/11/does-havi...
You wont be convinced. That's ok. I think we'll just disagree here. But, if you let these articles direct your life, or if I were to let them direct mine, we'd be fools.
This whole thread is honestly hilarious. "No sir, you are not happy, you are not fufilled, here is the data, sir"
- I have a book recommendation for you: The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt.
Read it. You will find some answers and some actionable steps to alleviate your problems.
- > I need to read his other work.
I can recommend his Happiness Hypothesis.
- For me, some of the best books I read this year, are:
- Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, I have seen many narratives on the fault at the core of current values and goals of human civilization, but never saw a laid out alternative. Whatever it might be, I like the book for attempting at presenting one.
- Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, I like this book for extremely original thoughts. This books was so thin (~200 pages), yet it was grand. I also wrote a review [0].
- The Happiness Trap by Russ Hariss, was very helpful to me in sorting through some things. Very practical book.
- Anathem by Neal Stephenson, one of the most original book, and probably the best one by Stephenson. Very original ideas, mind expanding.
- Permutation City by Greg Egan, this book raised the standard for possibly all SciFi book that I will read in the future. Extremely original and grand ideas.
- The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, another book that lays out alternatives to what is now considered mainstream.
- Sotyi Rupkatha by Parimal Bhattacharya (Bengali), a book without any ideological or emotional baggage explaining the plight and pain of a tribal community for Aluminium mining. The way colonialism lives in mining was eye-opening. Aluminium mining, separating, etc. are done in lesser fortunate countries where huge amounts of water is wasted and the environment polluted. The West still imports that refined raw material in cheap and produces final products with lesser environmental impact and peofits by selling the finished products to the same countries in large profits. It was refreshing to see that this book did not have a Communist undertone.
- Krishna Basudev by Bani Basu (Bengali), life of God Krishna in form of a novel in crisp prose, written maintaining authenticity of core books like Bhagavat Purana and Harivansha.
[0]: https://ritogh.substack.com/p/not-merely-a-story-of-a-man-fa...
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