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I've been going through it as well. There are a few things that helped me so far.

1) There's a biological component where happiness follows a U curve. Mid 40's tends to bottom out on happiness then steadily increases. Useful to know since riding it out is a viable strategy. [1]

2) This translation [2] of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is powerful as a daily reminder that no matter the year or station in life, the struggles are universal. Focusing on what's in your control and "knowing thyself" goes a long way towards fighting overwhelm.

3) Modern hypnotherapy is worth studying and possibly doing a session or two with a skilled practitioner. It's basically a shortcut for hacking into your subconscious and un-sticking negative loops without needing to spend years in therapy talking about the past. It's gained popularity in high performance communities, CEOs, athletes, etc. But important to know the more modern version is different than hypnotherapy from 10+ years ago. It's also not stage hypnotherapy. Much more like lucid dreaming where you're still completely aware. I particularly like Marisa Peer's Rapid Transformational Therapy. Her books [3] are worth reading. I can connect you with RTT practitioners or coaches if you're interested. I've worked with a few.

[1] (random link, but useful article) https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/scientists-just-discovered-mi...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Au...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Tell-Yourself-Better-Lie-Transformati...

⬐ badpun

> 1) There's a biological component where happiness follows a U curve. Mid 40's tends to bottom out on happiness then steadily increases. Useful to know since riding it out is a viable strategy. [1]

I'm not sure it's biological. I suspect it's because that's when people's lives tend to suck the most - they have all the demands of career and family, with very litle room for themselves. It would be good to study people who decided to drop out instead and see if they still follow the U curve.

⬐ simple10

Good point. I'm not sure if there are studies that truly isolate it as biological, but there are many biological changes that start to occur that correlate with decreased happiness. For instance, testosterone tends to decline after 40.

⬐ markus_zhang

Thanks!

1) Yeah I'm aware of the U curve. Kind of funny that I throw me a bone from time to time to keep myself having better expectation of future life down the road (Let's see if we can study General Relativity in the future -- Yes I know you are unhappy right now and does not have the will power to do any serious study, but maybe in a few years you will);

2) I have seen the Meditations gets mentioned a few times on HN. I'll definitely buy a copy and read during night. I wonder if I have the vocabulary to listen to the audiobook (not a native English speaker) but maybe I can find one in my mother tongue;

3) I heard about hypnotherapy from X-Files many years ago. I'm a bit scared about seeking its help because I don't know what I'm going to say during the session, could be scary. But I'll read the book first.

Anyway thanks for the help! I hope your journey ends well and fruitful.

⬐ simple10

You're welcome!

Hypnotherapy is probably not what you think. It's more like a type of guided meditation where you're awake but in a very relaxed state. This allows you to tap into parasympathetic nervous system as well as subconscious layers. At no time are you out of control or "under a spell." ;-)

⬐ rramadass

I recommend also reading the Caigentan (japanese: Saikontan). - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caigentan

An excellent book (there are similarities to Meditations) but not that well known.

I have two english translations; one by Robert Aitken (named Vegetable Roots Discourse: Wisdom from Ming China on Life and Living) and the other by William Scott Wilson(Master of the Three Ways: Reflections of a Chinese Sage on Living a Satisfying Life). Both are good but i am partial to the former.

I've always been curious why we translate old passages into "thou"s and "let not"s.

This might be why modern people feel so disconnected from past people, even though we're basically identical.

I connect a lot better with:

> "Forget the future. When and if it comes, you’ll have the same resources to draw on—the same logos"

(from Gregory Hayes translation, if I'm not mistaken)

https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Au...

⬐ dwohnitmok

> I've always been curious why we translate old passages into "thou"s and "let not"s.

> This might be why modern people feel so disconnected from past people, even though we're basically identical.

If the original text used what was already considered an archaic or rarefied register at its time of composition (as is often true of various classical works, indeed this is often basically what a "classical language" means), then a translator, in the process of trying to convey the original author's tone and intent, might choose to do the same in the target language.

⬐ waynesonfire

What a terrible translation. it's not true at all. Same resoucres in the futute? Unlikely. Nothing provides such guarantee.

The original quote with thou and thees that you're curious about instead speaks to the intrinsic motivations being available when the future arrives not resources.

So there is your answer? Meaning is lost in translation so best to stay as true to the original message as possible.

⬐ unsupp0rted

How would you translate the original quote into modern English?

Surely any major human language can accurately capture a translation from any other major human language, even if it requires more words than the original to convey the meaning.

⬐ dTal

The translation I've always heard is:

"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."

⬐ jimbokun

Aren't these just old translations, written when that kind of language was commonly spoken?

⬐ unsupp0rted

A lot of these translations were from the 20th century, with "thous" and "let thy"s found only in translated biblical verses and er, these translations of ancient works.

⬐ EdwardDiego

If I'm guessing, they're likely trying to convey the formality or informality of the pronoun used in the original, what's called the T - V distinction (from Latin, the informal tu vs the formal vos)

In English, thou was the informal, you the formal, as the subject in a sentence, with thee and ye the object form. Hence "God rest ye merry gentlemen" is better translated these days as "God rest you, merry gentlemen".

The T-V distinction is also why the Quakers maintained the thou form for some time, to indicate equality among all men (in the gender-neutral sense of the world), as you implied a difference in status.

The question of why the Bible used thous and thees is another interesting rabbit hole.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/opinion/sunday/pronouns-q...

⬐ Netcob

I agree - I think a case could be made for translating older versions of a language into the latest one, but especially if it's already a translation from a completely different language.

What's news to me is that people in the present are translating old non-English texts into some older form of English - is that true?

⬐ TimTheTinker

No, I don't think that's true, unless perhaps there's a tense or other grammatical structure in the source that was present in early modern English but not in present-day English, and they chose to use it for grammatical accuracy.

More likely, it's an old translation from the Latin. Many of the translations we have now originate from 150+ years ago.

One of the great books I am currently reading is Meditations* by Marcus Aurelius. This book reminds me time and again not to worry about things that I don't control and only focus on things that I can. This book introduces Stoic philosophy and I am surprised it is not that popular among Tech community (rarely being mentioned in Best Books HN posts).

*There are many translations of this book and the one I feel is easy to read is the one by Gregory Hays: https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Au...

⬐ gnclmorais

I can’t recommend this book enough.

1. http://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-A-Brief-History-Humankind/dp/0...

2. http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Aur...

3. http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Youre-Joking-Mr-Feynman-ebook/d...

4. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Five-Rings-linked-TOC-ebook/dp/B0...

Thought so too, but found this: http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Aur...

I recently read the Gregory Hays translation [1] and thought it was great. Meditations was Marcus Aurelius's "notes to self" and the Hays edition captures this informal nature. It makes for an easy and delightful read.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Aur...