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Comment by zkmon | Hacker News Reader

Books are same as TV shows - more about sounding weird to catch the fish (audience). I don't read any of those self-help books or seemingly philosophical notes.

The Western world has invented too much of self-awareness and social reflection. People smile too much, smile at strangers, worry about social acceptance, worry about self, go crazy about all thing cosmetic in life and at work.

You don't need to think too much about anything or have too much of self-awareness. Just be real, with neutral expression, relaxed, not emotional etc.

The worst thing is having happiness as a goal. It should be a side-effect, not a goal. Infact, you shouldn't have any goals. Any incremental achievement is nice to have, and down-side is business as usual. Just deal with it.

You get angry or emotional because reality is too different from your expectations. That's the fault of your expectations, not of reality.

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Expectations do not spring sui generis into hearts and minds. I don’t know about you, but AFAICT approximately sane and rational folks (ha! Ha!) at least try to derive their expectations from reality.

When most people’s reality is substantially human-defined and abstracted from nature - including a global advertising industry exists to create mass expectations, of economic significance for its clients, often enough to the detriment of their target markets - you can absolutely point the finger at “reality” for pissing on your leg while varieties of Stoic, Buddhist, and HN poster tell you it’s raining.

It’s good to start with ourselves when trying to create change, as that is where the locus of control should lie… but sometimes “reality” is absolutely the reasonable and proximate cause of negative emotion. Saying otherwise feels like anticipatory victim-blaming.

“ People smile too much, smile at strangers…”

How dare they.

If you are american you'll probably never notice how off-putting is the american niceness. And it's not natural if you ever traveled and seen the world a little bit.

Cool, stay in your other country and I’ll keep smiling with my fellow Americans.

I’ve travelled and lived abroad extensively and I’d say American niceness goes over well in 90% of the world. And where it doesn’t, boo hoo, they can handle a smile.

Genuine question as an American- why would niceness be off-putting? What would you prefer? I'm guessing neutrality or formality, as opposed to outright rudeness... is it because it feels too familiar, and a bit of arms-length distance is more your custom?

Again, genuinely curious as an outsider.

In most cultures, smiling at someone means, you know them personally. So, when you smile at a stranger, the stranger gets confused. They might think you are crazy. Also it could make them uncomfortable about how to respond. If they smile back, it means they know you, which is not true. Infact, if you smiled at a stranger of opposite gender, it could lead to other complications depending on who are with them, and they could get angry as well.

The phrase “low trust society” comes to mind.

No. It is lack of reason. Not long ago, if you went for morning jog in a village, you might be stopped and asked - I don't see a dog chasing you, why are you running? Same, if you give away some useful thing for free.

Some societies think the default position between strangers is seriousness, not niceness. The usual example is Russia if you would like to read more. In Russia, if a stranger smiles at a Russian, stereotypically the Russian would think either the stranger is crazy, or is planning some evilness and is happy about it.

Man, are you going to hate Canadians.

I disagree. I'm not American but I've travelled extensively around the world and in America. Niceness is widespread, it's not a particularly American thing. And it's always appreciated and positive, the alternative is miserable.

Being nice is natural at least in the Nordics, across Europe, Japan and other Asian countries.

Where is being nice unnatural? Russia?

I can tell you _haven't_ meaningfully traveled a lot because you're making assertions about "correctness" on cultural differences.

Some places smile, some don't. That's all fine. But thinking your way is the one right way is kind of sad.

> You don't need to think too much about anything or have too much of self-awareness. Just be real, with neutral expression, relaxed, not emotional etc.

“What a creep”

“Is everything alright?”

“Why are you so gloomy all the time?”

It’s easy to not care about others opinion when your life wellbeing doesn’t depend on it, for most people it’s not a luxury they can afford.

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