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Comment by snarf21 | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of a quote from Stewart Brand during an interview with Tim Ferris.

".... and being proud is the most reliable source of happiness that I know."[https://tim.blog/2018/02/03/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts...]

Teach yourself how to cook, get in shape, draw a picture, write a story, help someone less fortunate, teach someone something you know, learn how to juggle... In the end it doesn't really matter what it is but you will have that proud feeling and be happy in that moment. Rinse and repeat.

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Speaking strictly for myself, I have not found this to be true. I do enjoy collecting skills, and learning is fun. But no matter what the skill, eventually you hit the wall of diminishing returns, and I find that pride in that last 1-2% of performance is not worth the cost in time; I would rather improve a weaker skill another 10-20% with the same amount of training. And fundamentally, I find pride a bit too solipsistic to be truly satisfying no matter what the skill.

What I have found permanently effective is practicing gratefulness. Every day I make it a point to think of things that I am genuinely grateful to have, or to have experienced. This (for me), more than anything else, helps put my mind at ease, and allow me to enjoy the life that I have.

I agree. The challenge for me has been that in practicing gratitude I find myself fearing the loss of the things for which I am grateful even more.

I can't say I am 100% great at following my own advice, here, but I do find that it helps to try and focus on experiences that I am grateful for instead of physical things, and for much the same reason as what you give- you can't have experiences taken away in the same manner as a physical thing.

You're touching on something I can relate to. Being proud doesnt make me happy. But the sense of progression that comes along with learning or mastering something does. I enjoy nothing more than taking a skill I am okay at to something that I am great at.

The issue is this is hard and takes a lot of dedicated work to do.

Pride is also frail, see people who talk about impostor syndrom, they have weak pride, if at all, even when they get a good position. Self-esteem has to be calibrated, then you can have stable pride and, I agree, happiness.

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