Well, if you want a really reductionist view of happiness, which also happens to be largely true, you could say: have children.
It’s hard to worry too much when someone else’s existence depends on you. It’s incredibly hard, but like most things that are incredibly hard that’s where the contentment is found.
That's a pretty universal ingredient in any roadmap to happiness, isn't it? I mean that's basically the Christmas Spirit right there.
Since my son was born earlier this year (first kid), I certainly see how he can effortlessly make me happy in a way I found hard to achieve earlier.
While I handled most of my depression-like issues before (mostly anxiety), he seems to have a great impact on making me feel fully recovered, motivated and wanting things from life again.
On the other hand, you are basically forced to deal with it instead of running away, can’t leave the kiddo alone.
- Yes, bcz this reptile models is not accurate. It's at best an outdated but very intriguing analogy (which I agree can be misleading) but not here.
- No bcz a bit irrelevant to the our argument above. You may refer to [this paper](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234157/) quoting:
> "The preponderance of the cerebral cortex (which, with its supporting structures, makes up approximately 80 percent of the brain's total volume) is actually a recent development in the course of evolution. The cortex contains the physical structures responsible for most of what we call ''brainwork": cognition, mental imagery, the highly sophisticated processing of visual information, and the ability to produce and understand language. But underneath this layer reside many other specialized structures that are essential for movement, consciousness, sexuality, the action of our five senses, and more—all equally valuable to human existence. Indeed, in strictly biological terms, these structures can claim priority over the cerebral cortex. In the growth of the individual embryo, as well as in evolutionary history, the brain develops roughly from the base of the skull up and outward. The human brain actually has its beginnings, in the four-week-old embryo, as a simple series of bulges at one end of the neural tube."
Despite what that paper says, the lizard analogy goes to this, and I agree it's loose, outdated and misleading one but doesn't change the argument we're discussing here.
I don't think the author of the quote would agree that giving up and doing exactly what the system was designed to force you to do is the best solution.