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Comment by cik | Hacker News Reader

There's something cross cultural here that just doesn't cross. I can't relate. I'm responsible for me - my success, my failures. I also sure as hell better check on my neighbour and lend a hand.

Fulfilment comes from within, not externally. Results driven fulfilment comes from the gradual achievement of small goals, slowly combining into larger goals. They can be as small, as simple as reading a book.

The best advice I was ever given was 'finish what you start'. Rather than skim articles in newspapers, I forced myself to read (awful) articles from the beginning to end. Eventually that morphed, and I now make choices on when to skim, what to leave behind - what's a sunk cost fallacy and what isn't. But the point was to break the pattern, to achieve small things, and build on them.

I take the same approach with my kids. Get a win, then get another win.

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"I'm responsible for me - my success, my failures... Fulfilment comes from within, not externally."

What's external and what's internal?

Where do your desires come from? Your hopes?

Some people think they are the masters of their mind, that what they feel come from them, but what about the influence of their parents, their friends, the movies they watch, the books they read, advertising, music, social media?

We swim in a cultural ocean where things that seem on the inside might have actually come from the outside.

That's if there's even an actual distinction between inside and outside in the first place.

"Get a win, then get another win."

Is winning the point? What if someone doesn't care about winning?

I'm in my 50s and I like to think I've had a reasonable career so far.

However, by far the most fulfilling thing I've done for a long long time is helping out in a foodbank in a nearby town.

So my biggest regret at the moment is actually realising that, at least for me, helping other people actually can be rather more fulfilling than achieving purely personal goals - I wish I'd realised this sooner.

Yup. I am a sober alcoholic and the most meaningful experience in my life—by a country mile—is sponsoring another alcoholic young man and watching him transform into a responsible, capable adult.

It's true that sometimes we find something fulfilling late in life. But we should also factor that our mind (and thus perspective) biologically change as we age. So what you find fulfilling now at 50 may not be something you may have enjoyed in your 20's or 30's. I remember as a teenager I used to consider kids below 10 dumb pain-in-the-asses. Today, as an adult, I mostly enjoy interacting with them and find their perspective and curiosity really interesting.

I suspect the urge to feel needed, to be appreciated and the satisfaction from really helping other people is pretty much universal.

But it's discouraged at every turn from the top; and replaced with shiny things, power and competition.

I guess that's one advantage of age - the lure of shiny things has long since worn off for me. And I've been fond of expensive cars, watches, cameras, ski gear etc. as anyone...

You realised it just in time!

>What's external and what's internal? Where do your desires come from? Your hopes? Some people think they are the masters of their mind, that what they feel come from them, but what about the influence of their parents, their friends, the movies they watch, the books they read, advertising, music, social media?

How about thinking about it with common sense, as opposed to trying to find some perfect rational answer that squares the circle?

There will always be external influences, but we still call most of them "internal" if they gently shaped who we are, as opposed to us chasing after them like junkies and getting overwhelmed by propaganda (ads, unattenable images of success/body/status in the media, unhealthy peer pressure, and so on), or beating us to submission to them (e.g. like parents insisting on instilling their own youthful dreams or desires of becoming X or Y to a kid).

Especially if we mostly care for the trappings (being Elon Musk rich, and having Elon Musk lifestyle), and not the process (making stuff).

'How about thinking about it with common sense'

Common sence is a mythl

Thoughts think themselves, you are an empty vessel and they arrive in your mind by magic, and you have no real idea where they come from. All you do is react to them in one way or the other

This is the core of cognitive behavioral therapy.

Your thoughts don’t come out of nowhere. They are based on your own set of beliefs, usually shaped by experiences.

Change your beliefs and you can change your thoughts.

Yes, the above approach is exactly what I advocate we should avoid.

"you are an empty vessel and they arrive in your mind by magic"

Whatever: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis

But you're right! All our truths were invented by someone else(s), down to the language we use to write these replies.

"Get a win, then get another win."

Not OP but I interpret “win” in this context to mean something more like “success” and not strictly about winning or beating someone else.

It’s certainly a turn of phrase that I’ve heard used in that context a fair amount.

My thoughts exactly. I just told people I had a major win this week by getting a buddy of mine who started as an intern at my last job a full-time software engineer position at my current company (big pay jump & next step in his career + he's extremely talented and will be a huge asset for us). If our friend here takes the same approach with their kids, one I think can infer they're including cases like this.

"within" means values which you can hold against those of your immediate local environment; "external" means being driven by your immediate local environment.

As in, if you chase situations in which your local environment is full of applause, then you're only going to be satisfied when you're in those environments. If you chase situations in which you are, eg., finish some project in some area of interest, then you can be satisfied with "resources more your own".

What's external and what's internal?

Fulfillment certainly isn’t external. It’s entirely generated internally.

"What's external and what's internal?"

> 1. Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

Does it matter where our desires and hope come from at the very beginning ? We have thousands of divergent influences pushing us everyday. The ones we choose to go with come from within, they come from you, probably ingrained and influenced by your environment, but the only thing that matters is that you take them as yours.

Regarding "Is winning the point? What if someone doesn't care about winning? ", winning here has a wider meaning than the small 'winning a game' meaning, it means succeed at what you set yourself to.

You're of course free not to set goals to your own life, but doing so has long been found to be one of the best way to find happiness and meaning (it's the conclusion for Candid of Voltaire for example, but there's much more). If you're interested in the matter, I can recommend "Man's search for meaning" from Viktor Frankl

Are people's desires and aversions really something they can control? The thought feels alien to me. It's very difficult for me to even tell what I really want, let alone intentionally channel effort towards achieving any such thing.

The largest obstacles I face when it comes to achieving things is really that the things I want to do and the things I feel motivated to do are very rarely the same. Often I am extremely motivated to do things that I really don't want to be doing; I can spend hours fixated on something irrelevant and afterwards feel exhausted and annoyed because I really would rather have done something else, but my brain disagreed.

> Fulfilment comes from within, not externally.

I am 26 and this is has been the hardest thing for me to come to terms with over the past few years.

I thought I'd be happier with a high paying job. So I got a job that pays at the 99.9th percentile for my age. Didn't really make me happier. Then I thought my unhappiness was because of my weight. So I lost 90lbs. Hardest thing I've ever done. But it didn't make me happy. Today a voice in my head is telling me "you'll be happier if you get muscular," "you'll be happier if you get in a relationship." I plan to do all of those things, but I realize they probably won't make me happy.

What has helped somewhat with fulfillment was placing a fundamentally greater value on myself. Reflecting on my accomplishments has made this a bit easier. And I do value myself a lot more today than I did two years ago - my confidence is higher, even if not as high I hoped it would be...

I can't help but feel a bit lost. My accomplishments did not provide me the concrete, grounding, pervading feeling of achievement I hoped they would find. I wasn't happy after them. Instead, there was... nothing, and now I feel like I'm kind of just floating without direction when it comes to "finding happiness."

Two things to think about:

1. Maybe steady-state “feeling happiness” isn’t a good goal? Like, so what if you “feel happy?” If that’s all you want, opiates are widely available.

Maybe a better set of goals would be “peak satisfaction” combined with tangible external outcomes that you consider worthwhile.

2. The accomplishments you have listed are mostly about yourself. They feel empty now because you have basically got yourself under control. What can you improve in the world outside yourself? Can you improve the company where you work? Or your family in some tangible way?

I’ll give you one small example:

My cousin and his wife had failed two expensive rounds of IVF already, and they are comfortable but not in high paying jobs. They were struggling to afford another round. They had asked the family for help with a go fund me but didn’t come close to what was needed.

I had just gotten a bonus, and the total amount needed (several $K) was an amount I could well afford so I just sent it to them. I didn’t make it a big deal, and made sure they understood they owe me nothing.

To this day, I get a warm glow of satisfaction when I see my niece or they send pictures.

Way more than what I get from checking my bank account or reflecting on other “self” accomplishments.

awesome. thanks for sharing.

I believe you mistook the path for the goal, or the future for the now, if you want.

Exercise will make you happy, but only while you're doing it. Getting a raise will make you happy, but only for a short time period after that raise. "Having" a relationship won't make you that happy, but the process of building the relationship is highly enjoyable.

The key to happiness is to do those things that make you happy while you do them. Sacrificing your personal now for a better future is one of those church ideals that always struck me as weird. That said, if you work on making the planet better, that work will probably also make you happy as long as you keep doing it. But the "better planet" itself is too abstract to make you happy long-term.

> The key to happiness is to do those things that make you happy while you do them.

Exactly. It's not about reaching the destination. It's about enjoying the journey.

> Sacrificing your personal now for a better future is one of those church ideals that always struck me as weird.

I think in certain ways they're valid, but more for creating circumstances that will allow you to do fulfilling things in the future. Taking care of your body now to avoid health issues in the future, saving now so you don't have to worry about money in the future.

I guess a common baseline requirement for happiness is a sense of freedom. A healthy body gives you freedom to move (move in the broadest sense of the word, meaning also mobility, being able to pick something up from the floor without too many aches and pains), some financial backing means you're not constantly worrying about where your next meal comes from, so you're free to think about other things.

< Exercise will make you happy, but only while you're doing it. Getting a raise will make you happy, but only for a short time period after that raise. "Having" a relationship won't make you that happy, but the process of building the relationship is highly enjoyable.

Hey, thank you for crystallising such a fundamental and valuable piece of wisdom so neatly.

Highly recommend checking out the Wheel of Life[1], to help you understand the different areas that contribute to happiness, it's never just one thing. Writing down what you think will get an area to a 10, envisioning it, then seeing if you feel that would feel like a 10 is a great way to uncover where you may be overthinking what gets you there before doing all that work.

Gratitude should also help with each area that you feel is fulfilled, otherwise you just never have enough

[1] https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_93.htm

The pursuit of happiness specifically is pointless, and vague. What you need is meaning. Meaningful pursuit is something that you truly, deeply believe in doing because it will make the world better, both for you, and everyone in it.

I mean... it didn't make you happier, but it's better to be unhappy and rich than unhappy and poor, or obese, or physically weak. Single / in a relationship can be hit and miss though; it could work, but it might make things worse. Don't settle for anyone / anything.

That said, having a relationship helped me out of my funk, which was not dissimilar to yours. I - and my girlfriend - are now more content with mediocrity.

[I am not a psychologist] but it seems you described the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

If you want to be happy you’ll never be happy.

I also like that approach, but I get sidetracked. For example I have to wait for a CI build to finish, or for the compiler.. then I come here.. and write comments..

I worked on a lab, wait times < 1 minute were the worst, too long to actively wait, too little to go do something else. Now back in dev work it's even worse, because there's too many opportunities where you 'think' you can bridge that time, but you get lost way too easily.

What somewhat worked for me was time tracking based on my screen's focus (I use Timing for Mac, timingapp.com, no affiliation whatsoever). If anything it makes me aware, but since I use it for billing my hours, there's an incentive to minimise it to keep the day (at least somewhat) short.

Today's for working on my own stuff, so no tracking, hence me falling for the same traps again, and writing this comment. Probably should do it on a day like today as well.

I take it this writer would agree with that. It sounds to me like he can’t figure out why he can’t just do that in his own life.

I also cannot relate. My parents drilled into us the ideas of discipline, hard work and an absolute refusal to quit. I’m not super successful. I’m not a CEO. But I’ve accomplished more in my life so far than I thought I would.

Or perhaps my expectations are too low…

I so wish it was as simple as this. Unfortunately limited time means that doing something implies not doing something else.

Time is the bottleneck and not motivation or whatever. It's finite and we run out of it before we even realize it pursuing ephemeral things.

Finish what you start is such a great philosophy - I am trying my best to do that too.

That hasn't worked well for me. I'm too busy starting new things.

On the other hand, while I've got a lot on the go, I do eventually finish things, so winning I guess?

Yes if you do eventually finish, then winning indeed :)

You are not required to finish what you start but you are neither free to abandon it.

I think I need to take up this practice. I've largely given up multitasking and this seems like a good next step on the way to healthier life and higher productivity.

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