HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

There was a study https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good... on what made adult men the happiest over their lives. Supposedly it’s having the back of people that also have yours.

I don't know why people downvotes you. It's not an obvious thing.

To convince you, I gently ask you to see this ted.com video: "What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness"

      http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness

My point to take was communication is a skill and like every other skill, there is a gap in understanding between masters and novices. It happens everywhere; expert carpenters forget how they first started so they can't relate to their apprentices. In every practice, the basics are ingrained into master's psyche and they can't understand how you can't handle such a simple task.

In every skill there are protocols to learn as a beginner and small talk is where you start when it comes to communication. I think that people are like programming languages. Each one of us are Turing complete, but each one of us are suited better for different tasks.

Small talk is the "Hello World" of human interaction. You start understanding other people's syntax and how they function through small talk. Extroverts understand that innately. You can't move on to deeper subjects with another person until you understand what they are made of.

We tend to dismiss small talk as unimportant so we fail to build rapport with our peers. Without rapport, our relations and the topics we discuss stay shallow. We start misjudging other people as shallow based on our interactions, failing to recognize our indifference toward other people is the root cause of this shallowness.

Communication is the pillar human society is built upon so it is a good idea to master its intricacies. Especially in this age if you want to build anything worthwhile, you have to have a deep understanding of how to communicate with others. If you have that understanding kudos to you.

We generally fail to understand that, and my first comment was exploring why I personally failed and became lonelier over time, hoping that it might help someone in a similar situation since being and feeling lonely is not good for the long term.*

To answer your last question; I think "mindfulness" is just introverts blaming others for not having good solitude skills and doing something about it.

Thank you for this interaction.

* There is a longitudinal Harvard study on happiness, you might want to watch the TED talk of its director : https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good...

> the answer to life is different for each person

Robelt Waldinger seems to (partially) disagree:

https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good...

⬐ StavrosK

Summary: The secret to happiness is good relationships with other people, and the bane to happiness is loneliness. This agrees with my own observations as well.

There has been a scientific study about what makes people "happy" [1]. It's even something we can easily test personally: relationships. No matter what, relationships create that emotional swing that makes our lives interesting (assuming a psychologically "healthy" person, by today's standards).

That said, how many people actively pursue relationships? To me a person who has tons of friends (the kind you spend time with on trips etc. not the kind you text every once in a while to see how they are doing) but works a frustrating 9-5 job at a bank is definitely not someone I'd look up to. On the other hand a person who is extremely successful in his field, wins the most prestigious award in that field, but does not (again, by today's standards) live a healthy life does not set a good example either [2]. So what's the optimal situation?

And appearances don't help. I have no idea whether Elon Musk (since he was mentioned in another comment) is happy. I just know he looks successful. In my mind he's the kind of guy that enters a room and automatically and instantly gets the respect and admiration of the "smart" people in there. Does he even care about that? Am I being tricked into seeing Elon Musk as a status symbol like I'm tricked into seeing the iPhone as one of the best smartphones out there?

Happiness is definitely more complex than accepting what you do as "special". Accepting your current situation is a great way to start clearing up the cloud of things you consider important but if that was really the way to be happy why would we even bother improving ourselves or society? I hate to say this but I almost feel like this is the classic story of the fox and the grapes. When the fox can't reach the grapes says they are not ripe.

What if happiness was about pursuing something, regardless of the end result?

Refs:

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good...

[2] http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060821/full/news060821-5.htm...

⬐ papapra

In the ted talk, he doesn't explain why this is not just a correlation. Maybe there is something else that makes you happy and makes one better at having relationships. For exemple, someone who has anxiety disorder will not be good with relationships and most probably will be unhappy. But the root cause of unhappines is anxiety.

This TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good... makes the same point and used data from an 75y study.

⬐ oolongCat

This is incredible, thanks very much for sharing this. I really needed this.

Are people’s general orientations to prioritize time over money are associated with greater happiness?

Would you choose a higher paying career that demands longer hours versus making less money and having more free time?

From the downloaded text/pdf of the article: "thinking about money leads people to value productivity and independence, thinking about time leads people to prioritize social connections"

It looks like high quality social connections lead to happiness: http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_...

Dry read but great paper.

⬐ spdionis

I am curious to see more opinions on this study. The speaker argues that good relationships improve our health and success in life. I wonder how much of it is the other way around though. Maybe cause and effect are inversed?