[vidarh]

> Unproductive pleasures pall eventually. After a while you get tired of lying on the beach. If you want to stay happy, you have to do something."

Nonsense. This in itself is a result of falling prey to what Leo Baubata (the author of the linked article) writes about: Inability to "let go".

There may certainly be things you'd find more fulfilling. But if you need to do stuff to be happy, you are letting yourself suffer from attachments to things that more the most part are relatively inconsequential.

PG's essay suffers from this assumption that happiness is tied to achievements.

I used to think that too. The problem with that line of thinking is that it often leads to putting the shutters on and focusing on getting stuff done to get your happiness from it eventually, while ignoring all the sources of happiness around you. Further, that makes procrastination worse, in my experience: It creates guilt that you're picking the short term pleasures instead of doing the stuff you're sure will make you fabulously happy later, once you've just achieved something.

These days, I still get stuff done - more than ever, in fact -, but I might suddenly stop during my commute and look up at the clouds and enjoy the sight, or just close my eyes for 10 seconds and enjoy the calm, and I'm happy whether or not I'm doing anything. The two are not related. If you can't be happy even while doing the dishes, or fighting your way onto a commuter train, or carrying out some mind-numbingly boring menial work, you're missing out.

[randallsquared]

Happiness is a natural measurement of how well you (believe you) are achieving your goals. If you are unhappy, it's a signal that you should change something about your life, not a signal that you should short-circuit the measurement system.

[jmilloy]

Changing something about your life is a valid response. So is short-circuiting the measurement system. Keep in mind that the measurement system includes external cultural/societal pressures, out-of-date instinctual responses, and your emotions as interpreted through the lens of your own emotions. A disadvantage of changing what you do, instead of how to feel about what you do, is that you will probably arrive at a place of dissatisfaction over and over again.

[scotch_drinker]

This. I have a friend who changes jobs about every 6-12 months chasing happiness. And every 6-12 months, I can count on him starting to bitch and moan about everything at the job. He refuses to listen to the idea that maybe happiness should be externally obtained and instead should start from within somehow. In a lot of ways, this seems to be an Eastern-Western dichotomy.

We can decide to wake up and be happy or we can decide to wake up and let something dictate our happiness. Whether we do it consciously or not, it's still a choice.

[TheSOB888]

That is nothing at all like happiness. Are you one of those people without emotions? It's OK, I was too for a long time. It happens a lot to people in tech, or people who end up in tech.

Anyways, happiness is an innate emotion. It's much more central than anything about "achieving" your goals. If you don't feel stressed about the future, don't wish you were somewhere else/someone else/doing something else constantly, if you are having your psychological needs met, you are happy. Goal-based happiness is almost as bad as money-based happiness. You have to be more well-rounded than just focusing on your goals.

[randallsquared]

"Are you one of those people without emotions? It's OK, I was too for a long time."

Haha. Healthy people have emotions for reasons. If you don't introspect about why you are happy, sad, content, enraged, or depressed, you will have less information about how well you are living your life according to your own standards.

"It's much more central than anything about "achieving" your goals."

It's not clear to me how something could be more central than goals, so I don't think we're using the term "goal" in the same way.

"You have to be more well-rounded than just focusing on your goals."

Why would you want to be well-rounded?

That answer you just thought of? It's a goal.

[asdasf]

You are confusing a sense of accomplishment for happiness. That suggests that you may not have felt happiness enough (or recently enough) to recognize it.

[resu_nimda]

Not really. He's just using a more broad (scientific?) definition of the word "goal".

Eating food every day is a goal. Getting enough sleep is a goal. Peter Gibbons in The Office has a goal to do absolutely nothing.

[resu_nimda]

I meant Office Space. How embarrassing.

[dbingham]

Actually, no. That is not what happiness is. We don't know exactly what happiness is. But ironically, those who are happiest are often those who we would say are least productive and haven't achieved anything.

Case in point, one of the happiest families measured is an old family that lives in the Louisiana bayou. They're poor. They don't work much. They hunt and fish for a lot of their food and they all still live pretty close. They spend their days wandering the bayou and hanging out.

And they're happy.

[6d0debc071]

> Happiness is a natural measurement of how well you (believe you) are achieving your goals.

And what are your goals? If they're just things you set out to achieve, then that's false. We set out to achieve things that bring us no real pleasure in the achievement of - qualifications, promotions etc.

[bcbrown]

My experiences don't bear that out. A few years ago I quit my job and spent six months traveling across the USA, camping at national parks. It was a dream I'd had for a while, and I loved it. At the same time, I was very glad when my trip had finished, and I could get back to working.

What I noticed was that my subconscious had a need to make plans, to have a goal to work towards. I was living my dream; there was nothing I wanted to achieve, because I had achieved it. As a result, I started daydreaming, with my daydreams steadily becoming more fantastical and involved. By the end, I was ready to find a new goal to work towards; that ended up being professional/career development and continuing education.

I agree absolutely that it's important to be able to be happy while doing the dishes, but that's a different sensation. There's the pleasure of being in the moment, of acknowledging the sensations that surround you, of being alive. Then there's the satisfaction of achievement. Both are important, but they are distinct.

[Nilzor]

"Unproductive pleasures pall eventually". Would you be happy staring at the clouds consistently for two months?

[Illotus]

There are lots of unproductive pleasures to explore, when one is no longer interesting you can move to another.

Incidentally, one of the unproductive pleasure is starting side projects. The pleasure is immense when you spend few hours setting up yet another Clojure/Haskell/whatever project. This time it definitely is the one you are going to see through to finish!

[honestanon]

My wife tells me this all the time - because I am on the spectrum I see things in black or white; work vs fun, productive vs unproductive. Only black or white. I think I'm starting to understand...

The key is moderation. Don't dedicate 100% to productive-only tasks or you'll burn out. Don't dedicate 100% to veging on the couch watching TV or you'll bore out.

Can't everyone just stop analyzing every minute detail of life and just chill by living in the moment?

[e12e]

You'd also have to define unproductive.

Spending a few decades thinking about the meaning of life might be considered unproductive - or it could be considered "being a philosopher". (Most) art is arguably fundamentally "unproductive". I suppose one might say that if you, over time, don't impart some impact on the people around you (share a work of art, pass on wisdom, [ed:raise] (and/or) feed a child...) then you've been "unproductive".

But are you a philosopher by virtue of achieving enlightenment or by virtue of helping others achieve enlightenment? If you died before you came to a crucial insight -- was your time spent thinking up to that point "unproductive"?