[Brushfire]

We often worry about how to make our children exceptional, but I wonder of the people studied here, how many were genuinely happy? Shouldn’t we want our children to be happy more than we want them to be exceptional? The two aren’t mutually exclusive of course, but the pursuit of exceptionalism might lead to a less happy life, especially if that exceptionalism doesn’t materialize. I know far too many people pushed incredibly hard by their family/circumstances and burned out fast.

[corbulo]

Can you define happiness in this context?

I'm more of the mind that happiness is better as a side effect of a good life than the sole pursuit of your life. People who chase happiness as their primary meaning to exist usually are not very interesting and highly materialistic.

[Brushfire]

I think that’s a great point, and I don’t disagree with it. (Although I don’t particularly care about being “interesting” as a value). My point was more that as a parent I want to be responsive to my children instead of deterministic. I want them to find their path, not me to find it for them by declaring that they will be exceptional. My love is not conditional on their outcome of becoming exceptional, and further, an ultimately fulfilling life doesn’t require that either, nor should we teach that it does.

[RHSman2]

Provide the things to allow them to find the passions that enrich their lives while also give them the tools to manage ‘real’ life.

We sent them to various sports but my youngest found football via watching the World Cup, my eldest found swimming as we went surfing and he wanted to be better.

Their choices. We just facilitate.

[vineyardmike]

> not me to find it for them by declaring that they will be exceptional

I don't think providing them stimulus and opportunity is you finding it for them. Giving your child access to interesting people across various fields ensures they can learn about various intellectual pursuits. Treating them as a person with real ideas to consider ensures that they'll have the confidence to engage in the real-world as a peer. Giving them freedom and "down time" to explore their own ideas actually give them the time to find their own path.

Think of it as a vector, you can let them pick the direction, but you can ensure that they go far in that direction. They don't have to be a world-class mathematician, even being a well-respected local teacher is exceptional.

[corbulo]

I agree. I suppose interesting is more of a compacted term for depth, and from that comes levels of fulfillment in my mind.

I think no matter what you do it will have a deterministic effect on your kid. If you're more responsive than deterministic they'll observe you for cues of who/what you have the most respect or adoration for and maybe seek to emulate it (or if they're rebellious, spite it). There's a fine line and moderation is important as with everything of course.

[emodendroket]

> People who chase happiness as their primary meaning to exist usually are not very interesting and highly materialistic.

Personally I would have chosen this unflattering label for people who were pushed from birth into a particular career path and just followed along.

[corbulo]

Those kinds of people often have a highly warped idea of what happiness is. Usually imagined, consciously or subconsciously, as a magical oasis where their parents are satisfied with them and they 'make it'. Those who do 'make it' realize thats not how it works and burn out.

[vineyardmike]

Personally, I would think that some people are destined to be happy, just as some are destined to be a "genius".

I understand the sentiment that chasing happiness without "purpose" or consideration to the world around you might make someone vain and hedonistic but I don't think that applies to being career driven. I do think a strong career drive (esp. external) will not make you happy, and may even be a source of discontentment.

[lapcat]

> Personally, I would think that some people are destined to be happy, just as some are destined to be a "genius".

I think the submitted article tried to make clear that just being a gifted child isn't sufficient to become a "genius", and favorable circumstances play a big role in turning giftedness into exceptional accomplishment.

Thus, wouldn't the same apply to happiness? Even if there were natural predilections toward happiness, circumstances can play a big role too in bringing the predilections to fruition.

Perhaps one needs to be "tutored" about how to become happy.

[emodendroket]

That's probably true. It's a well-loved aphorism that money can't buy happiness... true enough, but not having money is certainly a source of unhappiness in small and large ways.

[n4r9]

Happiness is indeed a vague term. In the context of parenting, I would hope to foster self-esteem, an internal locus of evaluation, curiosity, and courage. These provide a solid foundation for general contentment, aside from the occasional inevitable traumas and trials of life.

[leobg]

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

[merlinran]

> I'm more of the mind that happiness is better as a side effect of a good life than the sole pursuit of your life. People who chase happiness as their primary meaning to exist usually are not very interesting and highly materialistic.

Those chasing happiness are usually unhappy https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/laurie-santos/

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

"Happiness" is an overloaded word in English, much like "love". In this context I think a better word for what parent probably means is "satisfaction".

Are these people more satisfied with their lives? Do they feel their life is meaningful and worthwhile?

Victor Frankl might argue that meaning and purpose are more important and entirely orthogonal to "success".

[eslaught]

s/happiness/health/ and then I think we have a more reasonable starting point. (And I mean health in the holistic/whole person sense, not in the limited sense of how well your biological machine is running.)

I think this helps make it clear that any single goal can compromise overall health, even if along that dimension you're exceptional.

[wazzer]

I guess those people that you observed being highly materialistic have a false idea about what will bring them happiness. There are people that strive for happiness and choose a different path. Money, I belive, can only get you so far.

[corbulo]

The materialism is just a symptom. The root issue is believe happiness is a stasis point where you'll just ride off into the sunset in this fixed emotional state until you die. That belief is why they think they could 'buy' it. They dedicate their lives in search of it.

[JellyBeanThief]

Money prevents you from being unhappy because of little things like no food, no water, no shelter, poor health, exploitation, exhaustion, social isolation, and so on.

Some people would say that's very far.

[amriksohata]

highly materialistic? look at the hindu sages in INdia, completely content and happy within themselves and they are not matieralistic, the western concept of happiness is chase all your sense to make sure you are happy above everything else

[corbulo]

I'm not sure if samanas are the ideal of how everyone wants or should aspire to find happiness. I'm also fairly certain they would describe themselves as content but probably not permanently happy. As far as I know they seek enlightenment, which is not synonymous with happiness as a concept.

[amriksohata]

the purpose is to be eternally happy rather than temporarily whilst chasing sense gratification

[imgabe]

Someone who has the capacity to be exceptional would probably not be happy to be held back. Would Ramanujan have been happier if he didn't pursue math and became a taxi driver or something instead? I don't think so.

You're creating a false dichotomy. People can be both exceptional and happy. Parents do sometimes create unhappiness by trying to force their children to be exceptional at something the child isn't interested in, but you don't have to do that. You can let the child develop and follow their natural interests and support them without trying to force them to be something they're not.

[emodendroket]

I doubt anyone is arguing to suppress a child's interest in mathematics but more against trying to squelch their interest in less obviously "worthy" pursuits in favor of making them burnish their college resumes.

[DC-3]

> Would Ramanujan have been happier if he didn't pursue math and became a taxi driver

Depends what number cab he got!

[lapcat]

804 of course: https://youtu.be/NBdMGBT2Wsk

[FormerBandmate]

The parenting approach advocated for here (freeing people from peer pressure by homeschooling them) is way more likely to produce a 4chan shut in than going to normal schools (which includes Harvard and MIT) is likely to force someone to end up a taxi driver.

However, tutoring your child intensely is obviously important and will result in good outcomes

[carabiner]

What's fucked up is that the average Mexican line cook who doesn't speak english contributes more to the world than an MIT-trained McKinsey consultant making 10x as much.

[edanm]

Ummm, no? What makes you think that is true?

[jjj123]

Because some “exceptional” paths actually make the world worse. While some humble ones make the world better in some small way.

The CEO of TurboTax makes the US worse by leading a company that lobbies to keep taxes complicated so they can remain an expensive middle man. A line cook is doing infinitely more good for the world.

[sockaddr]

I believe it. The consultant may change more things in the world but I don’t see how that change is necessarily a “contribution”. More like an optimization for a small set of people. The line cook however is creating from raw something that literally nourishes.

[edanm]

I think you're just falling on a lack of imagination. You can easily see what the line cook is producing, and it's much harder to see what the consultant is "producing" cause it's the stuff of thought and ideas, often. But that doesn't make it any less valuable - and often it's more valuable. The market certainly thinks it's more valuable and rewards it as such, which is a fairly good proxy for actually providing a contribution.

Also, you say:

> More like an optimization for a small set of people.

As if that's a bad thing or a not-as-worth-it thing. But this is what a lot of software is. I personally work with schools, and one of the things I do is create tools to make teachers and school administrators more efficient and effective at their jobs. It's a fairly small subset of people that I'm helping, but I believe I make their lives a little bit better by providing them better tools that are time-saving.

Is what I'm creating less valuable than a line-cook? I don't think so.

[ThalesX]

> The market certainly thinks it's more valuable and rewards it as such, which is a fairly good proxy for actually providing a contribution.

I've often wondered why 'the market' doesn't understand that if garbage men disappeared, my city would look like a hellscape in a week. Or why my cousin whose team keeps an entire county electrified, makes shit pay compared to me.

My conclusion was that 'the market' isn't a fairly good proxy for actually providing a contribution but as with all things human, there's also politics involved.

[edanm]

> I've often wondered why 'the market' doesn't understand that if garbage men disappeared, my city would look like a hellscape in a week.

I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of the market. I didn't understand this either until I (self-) studied a bit of economics.

The classic question in economics was this - why are diamonds more valuable than water? Without water you're dead. Without diamonds you're mostly no worse off.

The answer to this led us eventually to the theory of supply and demand. Sure, without garbage workers, the city would be terrible. That's why we pay them. But the supply of garbage workers is apparently much larger than the supply of e.g. software engineers. If you have 100 people who can do one job, vs. person who can do the other job, that 1 person has a lot more leverage and you have to pay them more. Even if both jobs are equally important.

That's how a market works. If your friend quit his team, he would presumably be easy to replace. If you quit your team, it would be harder. That is eventually reflected in your salaries.

It's not perfect - since no one has perfect information, a lot of this stuff is based on guesswork and consensus. But you can very clearly see that the principles are correct.

> My conclusion was that 'the market' isn't a fairly good proxy for actually providing a contribution but as with all things human, there's also politics involved.

That's a fair conclusion, but I disagree with it. I think it's really true that one Einstein contributes more to the world (on average) than one garbage worker. One software engineer contributes more to the world (on average) than one garbage worker. And so on. It's mostly due to scale effects - one garbage worker can only do so much. One software engineer does a lot more because their work is easily duplicated and scaled and affects a lot more people.

[geocar]

> I've often wondered why 'the market' doesn't understand that if garbage men disappeared, my city would look like a hellscape in a week

Maybe it's because "the market" believes you would be a garbage man if there weren't enough garbage men, because the price of garbage men would exceed what you were willing to pay for it.

That one doesn't trouble me as much as this one:

> Or why my cousin whose team keeps an entire county electrified, makes shit pay compared to me.

Now is it so much easier to hire people to electrify a country than to hire nerds to make cool shit?

Maybe so... Some of these big tech companies have massive headcounts and rarely (if ever) make anything cool after the first thing that made them rich. How big is your cousins' team and how many electricians are there in your country?

But one day, everyone will want to be a programmer... what will happen then?

[AlchemistCamp]

> I've often wondered why 'the market' doesn't understand that if garbage men disappeared, my city would look like a hellscape in a week.

I saw this in Toronto 15 years ago! It was not pretty.

[lordnacho]

The problem here is that you're equating market value with everyday value. A bit like when people say evolution is just a theory, and there's a line between scientific theory and everyday theory.

Only in this case, why should we think the market value is the only thing to care about? Sure the market gives a number to every good and service, but are we not entitled to dispute whether that number is the right number?

[edanm]

> The problem here is that you're equating market value with everyday value.

As I said somewhere else, water is far more valuable than diamonds. But selling water doesn't earn you nearly as much.

That's not a sign of the "market value" being different than "everyday value". That's a sign that water is plentiful, so however much you want and need water, me selling you water is not really helping you - you can just go get water yourself.

> Sure the market gives a number to every good and service, but are we not entitled to dispute whether that number is the right number?

Of course. And it's sometimes wrong. We have lots of rules and regulations that try to make the market more in line with other things we care about.

But you do have to provide an alternative. And I know of no better mechanism than markets to, in general, give a price to something. Almost everything else is flawed and/or biased in some way.

And btw, parent comment wasn't providing a nice justification for why the pay of consultants is flawed - it was just quipping that they are clearly not worth the money. Which is offensive to me, I dislike just writing off a whole profession. That's why I asked for clarification!

[ramblerman]

Why did you feel personally attacked? OP didn't mention software.

OP specifically mentioned Mckinsey consultants, i.e. "advice givers" and PPT generators who mainly exist to provide cover for higher ups. I'm inclined to agree with them.

[wincy]

I’d assume we’re arguing about general principles, not about specific jobs, it seems like navel gazing if we’re truly having a discussion strictly about “who is more valuable a garbage man or a McKinsey consultant”.

It’s merely an illustrative example to stoke the broader question of “are people who are more highly paid actually more useful to society?”

[emodendroket]

The premise is still worth challenging. It's not inconceivable that some of this thought-stuff is actually bad, or bad from a certain perspective, and the contribution is outright negative.

[edanm]

I agree that that can be true. But I don't think it's true in general, certainly not such that you can simply dismiss an entire profession as not providing any value.

[faeriechangling]

An executive for the Coca Cola company or Marlboro will be paid more than the Mexican line cook as well but they are also actively more destructive. Salary is more of a proxy for impact, less so for value.

[Silverback_VII]

>The market certainly thinks it's more valuable and rewards it as such, which is a fairly good proxy for actually providing a contribution.

The market has really bad metrics when it comes to contributions. One can see it very well with entertainment for example. What do people like MrBeast exactly do other than simply specialise in creating viral videos and therefore wasting the time of millions on individuals?

[edanm]

Look, I don't mean to be offensive, but this reads to me as "people like things that I don't like, therefore they're wrong and the market is wrong".

People like MrBeast! That's why he's successful. What is he actually doing? Creating entertainment for people. It might not be your cup of tea, but there's no inherent difference between what he's doing and what Shakespeare did. One generation ago people lamented reality tv, before that tv in general, there was a time that books were considered bad, etc.

This is exactly why a market mechanism is good! Because I don't want your views, or mine, to be what decides whether something is "worth it". You and I have different tastes, and we have different tastes to millions of other people, we shouldn't get to decide what they find valuable - they should.

[paganel]

Yeah, I'd put at 100x at least, most probably the OP wanted to be generous to the McKinsey individuals.

[watwut]

McKinsey consultants are making the worls worst. That one is easy.

[mer_saulty]

What makes you think it isn’t?

[edanm]

Well it depends on what you mean by "contributes to the world". For sure I don't think we can measure people's contributions only based on their work.

But assuming that's what parent was talking about (since that's the only thing they mentioned) - the market is sometimes wrong, for sure, but not as a general rule. If someone is earning a lot of money, they are giving some value that is worth it to the company that is paying them. More money = more value.

This doesn't always track with "contributions to society", because you can do things like e.g. stealing, which "gets you money" but doesn't contribute to society.

But consultancies as a general rule aren't stealing, they aren't as a general rule doing unethical things, etc. They are, for the most part, helping businesses. And that help is worth real money. This isn't theoretical either - if a consultant helps a business be more efficient in some process, that means real money to the company, which means real-world additional wealth is generated, which is a good thing.

The parent just made a quip because (I imagine) they think consultancies are a waste of money. And sometimes they are! But c'mon, I've known plenty of good, smart people working as consultants and I wouldn't want to jokingly quip that their job is meaningless. It's not worthy of a site like HN where we try to actually talk about things thoughtfully and critically.

[Beldin]

You skipped over the part where we consider if the concept of a business is a good thing for the world.

In a capitalist society, these are basically competing entities seeking to maximise their own profits. This entails minimising expenses. That is, in capitalist society, businesses work to charge as much as possible, give back as little value as possible, and put as much pressure on their suppliers as possible to lower prices.

The argument that this is a net positive for society could use a little substantiation.

[eouwt]

> The argument that this is a net positive for society could use a little substantiation.

The majority of societies that have tried anything different were/are significantly worse for the average person. That seems like more than a little substantiation.

[ericmcer]

What is the alternative to businesses. A centralized authority that dictates what is made and who gets to make it?

All the reasons you say businesses suck are also the reasons why they work well. They need to react instantly to market pressures. If someone is making something no one wants they will crumble, if a new demand springs up businesses will instantly be created to meet it. I can't think of another system that is instantly responsive to a changing world and doesn't require much oversight.

[edanm]

> The argument that this is a net positive for society could use a little substantiation.

I can make the theoretical argument all day, but really, we've lived in a world that has done this experiment for us. I look at capitalist countries, I look at communist countries, and I think it's pretty clear which ones are better to live in.

[curiousgal]

> making 10x as much

Yeah the chasm is much bigger than that.

[voisin]

We are concerned with exceptionalism as a society because we want to benefit from the exceptional person. We tell people it is better to be great than happy and assign all sorts of value judgments around that.

We as a society have collectively forgotten how to be present, mindful, and enjoy this moment. To do so would be to miss achieving our absolute highest and best social purpose.

[emodendroket]

I would posit that much of this drive has little to do with that and more to do with anxiety about the child's future earning potential.

[twayt]

People think that the happiness (in the way society thinks about it) is a given. It is not.

There’s a lot that goes into you being able to “do nothing” / be present / mindful / enjoy the moment.

Many exceptional people sacrificed their happiness to build the world that you can enjoy. And if you want that to continue, many more will have to do the same.

[lapcat]

> Many exceptional people sacrificed their happiness to build the world that you can enjoy.

On the other hand, many exceptional people sacrificed your happiness to build the world they they can enjoy.

[mer_saulty]

We’ve lost track of the best parts of being alive.

[seymourhersh]

The people described in the article don’t seem to have been “pushed incredibly hard” by their family or circumstances. For the most part it seems like the opposite - they were just given access to a lot of resources and expertise to help them in the directions they were already heading.

[NovaDudely]

Bingo! The strive to achieve was an innate function. Having others realize the resources they needed allowed it to happen.

[notShabu]

Yep, copying the external surface behavior of exceptionalism misses how a lot of exceptionalism is due to compounding internal motivation and meaning making.

A way of being that constantly re-emphasizes that way of being. Super-linear growth that doesn't stall out or crumble when external motivation is absent.

[twayt]

I don’t buy that truly intrinsic motivation exists. If anything I think the display of intrinsic motivation is an external performance more than anything.

If everyone a person cared about was taken away, I can’t convince myself that they’ll still have the motivation to perform the same way they did before

[detourdog]

If intrinsic motivation didn’t exist wouldn’t we all want the same thing. intrinsic motivation seems to be the driver to create.

[twayt]

Not really, the desire to be unique and different is also one that’s relative to other people

[detourdog]

Yes, that relativity you mention is exactly what I assume is measuring intrinsic motivation. So without it there would be little variation.

[twayt]

Happiness is like flux and is predicated upon moving goalposts (hedonic treadmill).

It seems to have emerged that way to drive evolution / progress.

In order for happiness to be sustained, you need economic / technological / societal growth. Who do you think is capable of producing that? Why should society care about the happiness of those people if them being happy / content slows down growth and hence the collective happiness?

[mach1ne]

> Why should society care about the happiness of those people if them being happy / content slows down growth and hence the collective happiness?

This is the basic problem of what is our purpose. There's no definite answer. What if it's better to optimize towards having no unhappy people rather than average happiness?

[watwut]

What makes you think there is no technogical progress without few suffering geniuses?

[twayt]

Because technological progress is not an iterative process.

There is a certain level of talent x struggle needed to get to the next frontier.

If everyone decided to not suffer in pursuit of excellence and simply work on iterating on what we have, the rate of growth needed to sustain our happiness will never come.

[Jach]

There are no guarantees, and trying to optimize for happiness could very well lead to more unhappiness than doing nothing or optimizing for exceptionalism or something else instead. And that's even if you have a theory for how to optimize the thing in question. If instead you're just stumbling around or working off vague hunches or the latest parenting fads, or perhaps overcompensating for something in your own childhood you thought was a parental mistake, don't be surprised if whether they do or don't become or achieve what you hoped for seems pretty uncorrelated with your own efforts.

As for "we", we should want a diverse range of values for what we want of ourselves and our children; universalism in any form is dodgy. A lot of types of parents don't care at all about their kids becoming exceptional or not, for various reasons. Some might instead hope for something different or just don't seem to care about their kids' futures much at all (kids as unattended grass). Tiger mom types seem to care about kids becoming exceptional in something, though other values are mixed in there too, and anyway it doesn't matter if I think their antics don't seem like a great way of achieving them. Some parents want their children to inherit the family business that's served everyone well for a couple generations, who cares what the children think or what the rest of the world looks like now. My point here is just that it would be a mistake for the collective "we" to create an ordered ranking of such preferences and enact grand goals to try to make every child exceptional, or every child happy, or every child something else; it's already unfortunate enough that small collectives seize power and enforce their own mostly arbitrary preferences on the rest of us, some of which I agree with, some of which I don't.

[Foobar8568]

Maybe the kids were happy to have these activities, to feel unique and privileged, and happiness in childhood to feel like shit in adulthood because we missed out so many opportunities as your life is mostly defined about what you are doing as a teenager just suck more.

/mylife off

[mer_saulty]

Maybe they were, and then they ran into real competition to be at the top of their field, and that dream just disintegrated.

What are you left with when you are raised on one specific value system and reality proves you’re not going to excel in that system?

We need to teach our children to have a variety of value systems, and that, of all of those, their academic or professional performance is not the priority.

[Foobar8568]

Teach the kid to neither over estimate (arrogance) himself or under estimate (lack of confidence) their abilities. Shattered dreams come from setting wrong expectations and abilities, it's easy to be the best at a town level, but regional, national or worldwide level is another thing, be it academically, sport or arts.

Have fall back in place, that's also where rich and supportive parents come : blow money on different endeavors without sacrifying school. Study end goals for what the kid wants to do, how to achieve these outcomes, what are the best paths, support the kids etc etc.

If we speak about sport at a professional level, an injury can kill a career, but still, if the "kid" is at a professional level, he has other means to be still successful in any cases, being resilient is also a skill.

[vouaobrasil]

For a variety of reasons I would say I am exceptional. (Since this account is anonymous I don't consider it bragging). I would say I am a happy person with some resilience, but that is because my upbringing had two facets, not just one:

(a) A lot of encouragemeent to explore things, and the benefit of family members in the sciences

(b) My family teaching me a healthy attitude of not caring what others think too much

I was never pushed. I was always told just to do whatever I wanted....so I think those two elements are crucial, since I grew up never caring whether I "succeeded" or "failed".

[paulpauper]

These are mutually exclusive or positively correlated slightly, that is, successful people generally being happier. It's not like you have to choose between one or the other.

[kortilla]

Successful and exceptional aren’t the same thing here.

[lordnacho]

Doesn't the research on happiness say that by and large you can't change happiness? That thing about people who've won the lottery or gotten seriously ill?

[lapcat]

Money can improve happiness, but there are diminishing returns to money. Winning the lottery is really one of the worst possible ways to improve one's happiness. For example:

1) Wanting to be ultra-wealthy is arguably a vice rather than a virtue. A form of gluttony. It doesn't make you a better person.

2) Hardly anyone is prepared for the massive, sudden change in lifestyle brought by winning the lottery. Not to mention that everyone you ever knew, and also people you never knew, suddenly want a piece of you and your newfound money.

We talk a lot about big lottery winners, because it's fun to imagine, but it would honestly be better for most people to win $10K or $100K rather than winning $10M or $100M. You can improve their lives without radically changing their lives, which can be a curse rather than a blessing.

Unless you already have a very specific idea of what you would do with lottery winnings, e.g., start a business or foundation that required $X million in capital, a newfound giant pile of unanticipated money doesn't necessarily do you good. Money needs a purpose.

[tiborsaas]

I'm not familiar with the research, but from experience, you can change it without a doubt. Happiness is an outcome, if you change things that prevent it then you'll have better chances of achieving it.

Tons of money alone is not a guarantee of happiness, there's a cutoff of income beyond which happiness maxes out. Getting seriously ill can of course induce depressive traits, however I've just seen a documentary about using psychedelics for cancer patients and it did improve their lives significantly, although not curing cancer itself.

[maleldil]

I'm not familiar with the research you mention (it would be great if you could cite it), but from reading and thinking about this, I'd say that happiness is intrinsic, and that external factors can't change it.

If you were miserable before winning the lottery, the money probably won't change that. If you have a bright outcome on life before getting cancer, you're more likely to cope and stay happy.

[lordnacho]

Not sure if this is the original, but there was a lot of talk about the subject a while back:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/690806/

[jalapenos]

I feel that most people aren't happy, but being exceptional gives you more rocket fuel to break out if you can.

[xvilka]

There's no happiness without sadness, there's no enjoyment without pain.