Google’s former happiness guru's three-second brain exercise for finding joy
qz.com
qz.com
Still, there are plenty of good looking people who can't get laid and plenty of rich people who are unhappy.
That being said, probably not a good idea to become responsible for other people before you've got your own life figured out.
The same car crash that drenches the broke student rolls off the retired millionaire's back unnoticed.
e: Of course, some people cope better than others regardless of the situation. But to imply that having more money doesn't make coping easier is simply foolish.
That seems rather offensive and narrow-minded. Sometimes life has its surprises that weren't expected. Life can also throw us curveballs. One day you might feel like everything is going well but then something changes. I'm sure some of the 300 or so people at Twitter who are about to lose their jobs probably thought they had things figured out.
As a parent, I'm not sure if there's ever a "ready" point, but I definitely feel like my life (and my kids') would have been tangibly more difficult had I decided to have them a decade earlier. Parenting is hard.
You're also assuming that the original comment was about bringing a child into the world in a circumstance where it was hard to make rent, they couldn't afford to quit the job and had a horrible boss. What if these circumstances happened after having children? Not everyone can simply quit and work elsewhere.
If you're an engineer working in the bay area, you might have plenty of companies to send your resume to but that doesn't mean you're going to land on your feet. What about non-engineers? Or those who don't have the good fortune to be in an industry and location that is largely unique? I'd be interested to hear your advice for any factory workers in the Midwest where that factory closing means tough times ahead. Please, tell us how you think they should've avoided raising a family or making sure they had marketable job skills so they could land on their feet with a job of similar pay so they wouldn't have to struggle.
If everything was going great, and you suffered some disability that precludes your ability to properly support yourself (but strangely doesn't qualify you for disability benefits), you have my full sympathy. I don't think this case is very common though.
Ignoring that most people live surprising and unplanned lives, even if you get your shit together, life is still full of surprises. You can lose your job, get very ill, etc even after you're good and settled in life.
Worse, we've convinced people to have kids in their late 30s and early 40s because between the levels of education you need to be competitive and the many years of working shit jobs before you get a 'real' job or at least one with a comfortable income, you'll find yourself old. Humans probably weren't designed to have kids so late in life. We're seeing a huge uptick of autism spectrum disorders and taking care of a baby at 41 is a lot tougher than a 21 year old who can weather the storms of low sleep and other issues.
The question in my mind is why has society lost its basic compassion towards having children? Reddit's most popular subs include /r/childfree and parents need to fight for basic maternity/paternity rights. In the past, the family unit was considered our more precious thing and society was built to protect it. Now soceity is built to protect markets and economies while families are just a 'fuck you if you want kids' kinda of deal.
As an older dad I think the system is ridiculous. Live to work vs work to live is a big theme in my life and the pendulum has unfortunately swung to the former long ago. Its especially obvious once you have kids.
Having just gone (or going) through probably the worst year of my life the one thing that has helped me not to have a breakdown compared to when I went through a very similar phase 10 years ago is having a significant buffer of cash savings. This more than anything has allowed me to be happier with not feeling so trapped. I can only imagine if I had 100 times it I wouldn't even have to deal with the day to day stress of normal work. For me just taking part in society right now is tough but I know I could have it much worse.
Its the middle class that gets something of a bum deal. We work hard and pay a significant tax load and get to maybe enjoy our weekends and the occasional vacation, that is if we aren't too stressed out from work and can make time from our busy projects and responsibilities to actually take that vacation.
Not sure where this comment is going, but its incredible how there's this taboo in corporate life, especially 'fun' workplaces like google, to admit that its all fairly soul-crushing. Buffets and memos from happiness gurus are part of the problem here. The solution is implementing 4 day workweeks, mandatory 8+ week vacation time, mandatory maternity/paternity, etc and start moving towards empowering people and making them happy via free time, lowered stress, and better work/life balance. Advice from happiness gurus is just window dressing on workaholic culture.
Even then I still need to work 40+ hours a day, handle a commute, handle work stress, handle work politics, etc.
Truth is, if you grab a soda from 7-11 on your mad dash from your BK job to your Wally-world job, you're just not going to be stopping and savoring it.
1. there is a spectrum of wealth. of course it's better to have millions rather than spiderwebs in the bank, but it's inappriate to use as reference, in reasoning, the exact opposite.
2. quite subtle: everybody has a boss. even if you're the CEO, it may be the board; or it's the clients (don't think that because you have a very successful product, the market demand aligns with your wishes); or it's even the managing position itself (what will happen two weeks after completely disconnecting from your ten thousands people company?).
3. people's standards increase with the salary, therefore everybody has to work to mantain such standards. you won't see a millionaire living in an 80 sqm apartment in the suburbs or moving around with bike (so to speak); therefore, even a millionaire will have to work.
there are so many other small subtle misconceptions, but I think 2. and 3. are very important to keep in mind.
don't get me wrong, it's been said and studied that a (minimum) position of middle/upper middle class relieves from many of the problems of the likeness you reference, while at the same time giving enough freedom in one's choices, but I think it's wise to separate the ability to prepare/make life choices which give freedom, from the perceiving wealth as the source of freedom.
All IMHO!
but it's inappriate to use as reference, in reasoning, the exact opposite.
Note that it's not powerful argument because it's the 'opposite'. It's powerful because this is the reality for the many/most of Americans. The argument isn't 'take away everything', it's 'put him in the same position as most people'.
Freudian slip?
I would have thought you'd be more likely to see a millionaire living in those conditions. You don't get rich by living extravagantly, you get rich by living on the bare minimum and investing the rest. Granted, a detached house could have been a good buy in the right market over the past while.
I got someone in my office that does those kind of exercises etc. I highly respect him, but as you said he has a kid and he has loads of things in his mind etc. Believe me once a car rental company charged him extra money for something and all the mindfulness and exercises went out of the window, he was unhappy by it and he seemed unhappy for a few days.
While money is not everything and you can most certainly be happy without them, being able to provide what you deem necessary to your family is the most important thing.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
[2] http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-fiv...
[4] http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/raising_happiness/post/happi...
Those seem like big distinctions.
This. There's a real dark side to this 'feel good' culture. I've been into meditation for quite some time and it really does make you much more entitled. You get complacent with low stress and it becomes your new norm. When that new norm gets broken its very jarring and you realize you have less control of your emotions than you assumed. Apparantly, this stuff is like a muscle. If you don't use it, you lose it.
Meanwhile the guys who deal with shit all day don't get fazed as much. Of course the car company screwed up, they almost always do, and the people who work there are barely above working at McDonalds. Having lowered expectations and a low regard for others seem to be the real way toward contentment in the modern world. Sure, that sounds cruel, but its probably true.
We just hired a new guy straight out of school to help out in IT and he's just easily stressed, surprised, and sometimes borderline livid at how bad some of our staff are and how terrible some of our vendors are. Life's different in college as college is something of a meritocracy. The office world and 'real life' are a non-stop shitshow of dishonesty, laziness, entitlement, rip-offs, and incompetence most of the time. You learn to live with it and things like meditation and positive thinking don't really help, especially if your tradition empathizes the 'goodness' in others. Thats simply is a disservice to you. People tend to follow a simple game theory-like strategy in life. They aren't going to be your pals and have your best interests in mind. They will have their own best interests in mind and a lot of times that means being shitty or lazy at their job. No 'happiness guru' is going to change that.
I used to think I could live without cynicism (or perhaps Stoicism) and with always thinking the best of the other person, but it just made me like your friend. A bit drugged up via my own practice and being unable to handle real life, real stress, and real everyday people.
I think you're playing up a 'no true scotsman' card here. I think most, if not all, people into meditation and spirituality become like this. If this stuff worked like magic, everyone would be doing it. It turns out it has a lot of downsides and often changes people for the worse. Maybe in some 'spiritual' way they're better people, but they still need to work with the real world and they seem pretty terrible at it. The guys I see losing their shit in public aren't poor people with bad social skills, but upper/middle class men and women who felt their entitlements challenged. One of those entitlements is feeling 'chill' about things. The woman doing yoga and meditation everyday is also the woman screaming at the kid at subway for not putting on enough olives on her sandwich. I've pressed these people before and I usually get a "I can't deal with unspiritual people" excuse. Its incredible how the cult of calm brings out the worst of people. I'm not even going to go into how this lifestyle is linked with things like anti-vax, reiki healing, crazy diets, cleanses, homeopathy, etc and other questionable things that can, and do, victimize children.
I think the idea that all meditators, or even those who do it 'correctly', become some kind of super-being to be pretty silly. Its obvious the effect it has is pretty subtle and the kind of people who buy into it are often insufferable and pretentious. I think its okay to learn as a quick-ish stress reducer, but the idea of a daily hour-long practice and all the accoutrements surrounding it is fairly absurd and leads to pretty stupid places.
But you never give an argument for why there would be no variation in instruction, actual execution of practice, background ideologies, etc.
> I'm not even going to go into how this lifestyle is linked with things like anti-vax, reiki healing, crazy diets, cleanses, etc
Meanwhile, that comment makes it clear that you are speaking of a very particular subset of practitioners. You are referring to a New Age-derived subculture here: their attributes aren't derived from practicing meditation, they probably practice some form of meditation because their subculture values it (i.e. by labeling themselves meditators, they gain cultural currency. There is incentive to exploit the practice for social purposes to begin with).
There are also many other practitioners who view meditation as totally unrelated to anything like spirituality, who understand its operation in purely psychological terms. And there are solemnly religious folks who take it very seriously and probably do not cavalierly exploit it for social gain as you describe.
(even though the "prevent suffering" idea has some real interesting and beautiful implications, when they add "and mineral", it's like they played too much 20-questions or something)
It works like magic the same way exercising works like magic to build you muscles. Or in other words, it's not magic, and takes a long time and a lot of self discipline. That's why everyone isn't doing it.
So, when you said
> I've been into meditation for quite some time and it really does make you much more entitled. You get complacent with low stress and it becomes your new norm. When that new norm gets broken its very jarring and (..)
you really meant to say that you too have bought into that "lifestyle" for quite some time now?
It's not a "no true Scotsman" fallacy if you only implement the easy, happy, sweet half of serious practice. It's not even hard, you just need to include the unhappy emotions in the practice and not ignore them. All the introductory texts and lessons are very clear about this. If someone somehow manages to miss that, then yes, it's not a fallacy to point out they're doing it wrong.
"It doesn't work!", "Well you're half-assing it.", "Ah, pffft, no true Scotsman! I'm just going to assume it makes people entitled."
Interestingly, literally no one I know who is into meditation, are "like this". As an, all of them are quite aware that negative emotions are supposed to be accepted as an important part of the practice (it actually makes them easier to deal with, what's not to like). But then, I also have zero patience for people that eat the menu like this, so I probably filter and not get to know them enough to find out they're really into the "lifestyle" of happy floaty.
When you say these things don't really 'help,' it depends on what your goals are in the first place. If your goal is to defeat them in a local competition for resources, you are correct. However, that's not the only possible goal-type. (Only really commenting on meditation though, 'positive thinking' is in direct conflict with the values of meditation, so lumping them together presents difficulties.)
If your goal is to become "Mr Spiritual" that's fine but now you lose your shit when the kid at Mcdonalds messes up your order because he upset your calm. Or you quit the 'rat race' and get a low paying job that you think is 'more spiritual and calm' and now have to move to a ghetto where you get mugged often and have to go on welfare to make up for your income.
The reality is that one goal eats at the other. That's my point. The only exception I can think of is monastic life where your needs are taken care of by begging or via welfare. My understanding is that this is what the Buddha intended with Buddhism and was very wary against teaching it to lay people. I imagine because it actually doesn't benefit the laity. It just leads to the problems listed for most.
That's a false dichotomy. I know the type you're talking about—but many would find it equally undesirable to (or even another manifestation of) valuing only social/economic gain.
Edit: fixed typo. Also, here's an example of a third goal type: "I'm going to spend a huge chunk of my life at work. So, why not enjoy myself and the company of my co-workers while there?"
second time you described a situation like this as if it's perfectly normal behaviour. it's not. and it's got nothing to do with meditation either.
is this yourself? or do you witness this sort of scene frequently?
you realize that if you say "well they probably have a lot on their plate, so they lose their shit at the tiniest slight", this makes you part of the problem right?
because, and it feels a little silly explaining to a person over the age of 12, but verbally abusing someone, be it in a shop or anywhere else, is never appropriate or acceptable, no matter where they put your olives, and no I don't care who started it.
> this is what the Buddha intended
the nice thing about not fully buying into Buddhism and still practising meditation is that you don't have to place any extra importance to what scholars say that some guy may or may not have said or intended thousands of years ago.
The key to meditation as a skill is to learn to control your mind and attention so that you aren't caught by difficulties.
When difficulties become ... more difficult, it becomes more challenging. What "modern" meditation does wrong, is it does not prepare you for the assaults that come with a truly challenging situation. Mindfulness probably addresses resisting hedonistic things, but Stoicism and others are much better for walking through life's challenges.
Pick up Meditations or Obstacle is the Way or Warrior Mindset. The last is a quantitative manual for training yourself to handle stress, written by combat fighters.
I'm working on my PhD thesis at the moment and between papers being rejected, supervisors dropping of the grid for weeks at a time, side projects failing etc., I've been trying to find a little respite in mindfulness.
I think there is certainly a place for mindfulness, calm and stress reduction techniques. I worry about stress related heart disease, aneurisms, cancer. But at the same time, a healthy cynicism can ground you.
Life is confusing.
Taking away his millions and giving him a lousy boss is one way, but perhaps there is another easier way that I'm just not thinking of right now.
Edit: I've lived my entire childhood in my city's poorest neighbourhood. Everyone with a positive mindset got to experience joy. Money makes life easier but it won't change a bad mindset.
Or are you actively positively suggesting that wealth makes you happier, as in having more positive emotions, and therefore to be happy we ought to seek to earn more?
Taking your comment at face value, I think this latter statement hasn't borne out to be true in the psychology literature. Wealth doesn't correlate strongly with positive affect, especially after a point.
1. Something I read somewhere, reference long gone now unfortunately.
> I'd bet it's inversely proportional to the number of things we have available to worry about.
It doesn't sound sill it sounds to me like it would have the exact opposite effect. So I'm feeling low and I think "imagine if I'd not got my job, then I'd be feeling crap and be hungry and possibly homeless .. basically I'm an incapable and worthless person .. might as well top myself now".
In contrast I practice enjoyment of those things which make my life better, like dwelling on their benefits drinking deeply of the contentment a moment of happiness can yield.
Glad you've found something that works for you; and I'm going to dwell on that rather than imagine you hadn't and instead had become morose!
My understanding of the 3 second exercise from the article is that it's the simple steps of experiencing a pleasant moment (trigger), noticing & reflecting on the simple pleasure (routine) and then the boost in happiness felt after this awareness (reward).
>Teller ended the meeting by standing up in a huff, but his attempt at a dramatic exit was marred by the fact that he was wearing Rollerblades. He wobbled to the door in silence. “Then there was this awkward moment of him fumbling with his I.D. badge, trying to get the door to open,” Kemper said. “It felt like it lasted an hour. We were all trying not to laugh. Even while it was happening, I knew we were all thinking the same thing: Can we use this?” In the end, the joke was deemed “too hacky to use on the show.”
[1] http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-silicon-va...
Google employees can give themselves whatever title they like, and give talks (or invite people to come and give talks!) on any subject they like. That's why there's so many weird talks at Google - it just takes one person to agree to it.
I also think that with myself (and possibly others), that it would lead to the habit of "Rather than setting aside time to do things I enjoy, or stepping away to do things I enjoy, I'll just do this exercise to be able to continue working my life away".
E.g., even the best family & friends periodically cause some stress & unhappiness. But excommunicating everyone doesn't make you better off.
> The idea of savoring experiences is a good start.
Please have a bit more empathy for your fellow man, and remember that nobody tries to be miserable on purpose: something must have went really wrong along the way.
The idea that only special things are worthy of being savored is at the root of the problem. A sunset, a flower, a slice of cheese pizza, whatever - it's beautiful, appreciate it.
Sunsets, flowers, and good-tasting slices of cheese pizza are actually kind of special. Plenty of people don't have access to these things. They wake up before the sun is up, then they go work in some building away from trees and flowers and the sky, eat the only cheap, low quality food they can find, and then come back home when the sun is already down. And after living life like this for many years, their brain starts to forget the beauty of the flower or the sunset or the cheese, and when they finally see it, it doesn't look as bright and beautiful as it does to us.
http://ivn.us/2014/05/23/the-psychological-effects-of-povert...
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/08/25/095679761559...
If your life situation is such that you don't have the ability to experience a sunrise/sunset/pretty flowers/cheese pizza/a variety of other equally common but amazing things, it is almost certainly because you put yourself in, and keep yourself in that situation. There's pretty much always a better option, if you really take a close look at things. I have limited empathy for self-imposed suffering, I feel that only reinforces bad choices.
The analogy I make for most people is that their unhappiness is like being in jail, only their cell door is unlocked, nobody is guarding the prison, and nobody is keeping track of who should and should not be there. You could literally walk out at any time and be free.
As for a hard life dulling your ability to feel pleasure, you are in control of how much you attend to your senses. It is exactly the thing my original comment was about - don't focus on how bad your life is and how much you suffer while you put this marvel of modern culinary magic in your mouth. Instead, quiet the mind, take a deep breath and inhale the aroma of the food. Really look at that beautiful slice of deliciousness, then take a bite, and roll it around on your tongue to truly feel the crispness of the crust and the spring of the cheese. Let the waves of flavor roll over you as the sauce and cheese intermingle in your mouth. When the food has been chewed to the point it is no longer pleasing, then swallow it and enjoy the feeling as it travels down into your stomach. You can literally do this for ANYTHING pleasant in your life, and it makes things _so_ much better.
You're not empathizing, you're projecting. And in your projection, you were in control of everything, even if in reality there were likely many perils that you simply didn't notice, and a lot of things occurred by accident.
The problem with this approach is that it results in a very serious warping of the concept of cause. All failures are attributed, but also all successes are attributed. What happens when one with such a belief is successful? It all goes straight to their head, no filter at all. This perception assumes that neither chance nor third party causes exist, which means it's effectively impossible to have any empathy whatsoever for someone who was unlucky, and one feels highly superior to them. Which seems to be exactly the case here.
Empathy is more than trying to recreate your own feelings in an event, transplanting it to someone else's vaguely similar situation, and saying that you now know how they feel. Assuming that other people are exactly like you, have the exact same brain, and will feel things the same way empathy decidedly isn't. Empathy includes actually being able to understand people who are not like you at all. It also leads to understanding that there's a whole world of perception you will never have access to, yet you seem to be completely and utterly sure that you have figured out every person on the planet.
I am happy to step forward and uplift people who encounter adversity, pick themselves back up, figure things out and keep striving. On the other hand, I'm not going to provide positive reinforcement to people with a negative attitude who think life comes down to luck/genetics/parents, and they are out of control. That attitude is a sickness, and acknowledging it is like giving a homeless drug addict money; you might think you're helping, but you're only fueling their downward spiral. I understand perfectly well that the addict feels substance abuse is the only way to numb the terrible pain and emptiness of their life - I know exactly how shitty they feel inside. Don't assume because I don't think coddling people with certain maladaptive life views is the best way to help them that I don't understand their suffering.
As for understanding people that are in no way like yourself, you haven't the faintest clue either - nobody does. That doesn't mean that when they are in circumstances similar to me, and they take actions that are self-defeating, I can't apply life lessons I've learned to them. Relativism taken to that extent is just foolishness.