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Comment by mburney | Hacker News Reader

I have come to the conclusion that following or pursuing goals and dreams is not the key to happiness. Yes, it is something worth doing, but it is not a magic pill.

Running a business, or working on a creative project can also cause a lot of unhappiness and misery. I've been pursuing my goals and dreams for a couple of years now and I don't think it has made me happier at all.

I've found these things to be much more important:

-Maintaining a calm, relaxed state as much as possible. Not suppressing anger but not letting it destroy you either.

-Physical and mental challenges; doesn't mean you have to quit your job and pursue some grand scheme though

-Socializing

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While I like 'socializing', I'd qualify it more as a distraction - the 'reading Hacker News' type of distraction - that takes your mind off the problems. It usually doesn't solve much, but makes you happier for a while.

It makes you happy for a while, but also overall. When I think back, the happiest moments have been those spent with good friends, not those hacking away all night.

My happiest moments, when I think back, are a mixture of both.

I don't want to make the sort of assumptions about your life required to suggest this observation necessarily applies to you personally, but:

if 'socializing' is perceived as simply a 'distraction' from a litany of minor complaints about paid employment, its quite possible the root cause of unhappiness lies not in the job but in a lack of compensatory enjoyment of social and leisure situations outside the workplace.

You have not yet found the right people with whom to socialize, I think.

(It's also possible you are just very different from me and from most people I know; but I used to feel similarly; and I still don't like to socialize a lot, but with the right people, every now and then? it can be pretty great.)

Brene Brown is a researcher who believes that true happiness can only be found in establishing meaningful, deep connections that leave you vulnerable. She has a popular ted talk here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

I think I didn't expressed exactly what I meant, so to respond to all comments under the parent post:

I do love spending time with people. I'd say, I like to do it too much sometimes. However, I also found it to be a super-effective way of escaping from harder problems, not only my-job-sucks related, but general my-life-sucks related. What I meant to say in previous comment is that (for me) it has similar 'signature' as escaping problems by reading / discussing on HN. It's not a waste of time, but I know for myself that I could spend here much more time that I should. Ditto for socializing. Sometimes you actually want to solve your problems instead of complaining about them to other people.

I feel the same way but I also think we're a minority. For me, I want to connect in meaningful ways with people. I dislike bar buddies, or casual hangouts with people I know casually. I also feel if you lack any sense of purpose, or a mate, and you keep socializing casually with other guys, it makes me feel worse.

What helps with point #1, let go of the things that are out of your control. No, let them go, completely. Don't let them infect your thoughts at all. If you limit yourself to worrying about things that are under your immediate control it's a lot easier to maintain that calmness. Most of what anger is, is the realization that we don't have control over something that we wish we did.

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