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Comment by dankohn1 | Hacker News Reader

> Basically, comparison causes conflict, conflict causes anxiety, anxiety causes fear, and fear makes mind dull.

Unfortunately, I can report that I have done all of my best work in my career when I was extraordinarily anxious, feeling like I was holding to the side of the cliff with just my fingernails. Whenever things have started to get too comfortable, I found that hubris has disrupted my successes.

It's a sad thought, but I see absolutely no reason to believe that the natural state of humanity is to be happy (or, more specifically, content). The Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness [0] seems like a pretty harsh place, and that's also where I've found most brains function best.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology#Environ...

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>I see absolutely no reason to believe that the natural state of humanity is to be happy (or, more specifically, content)

What about the fact that stress is tremendously destructive to our health? It is directly a threat to the survival of both individuals and the societies they live in. If being in an anxious state for extensive periods of time were the most advantageous to survival, then evolution seems not to have noticed it. The structure and functioning of our endocrine system heavily suggests that humans were built for occasional short bursts of high stress, not extended periods of constant high stress (as we have designed society to require of most people).

Fear is biologically advantageous in moderation. Without fear (anxiety, stress, etc) you would have not lived past infancy.

Stress doesn't kill you until after the age of reproduction. There is no way for evolution to select against it.

Looks like there are multiple paths for success :) Human being is such a complex machine, I don't know why people think that there is only way to succeed - _genuine_ motivation for the job. What is genuine and what's not? If the job is getting done, who cares!

Sometimes its just good enough to be like cockroaches to survive and succeed.

When you say you were anxious and holding to the side of the cliff with fingernails, were you also particularly busy?

I ask because I can recall several times in both school and career when I was much more productive because I had to be due to time constraints than when I had ample free time and was not as burdened. I'm wondering if you are describing that as well.

The question is not really what the "natural state" for humanity is to be happy, but what would you choose?

Would you rather be happy or productive?

If I had to pick just one, I guess it would be happy. But I choose both. Fortunately for me I am happiest when I am productive, so it works out.

Producing a happiness revolution would be the most productive thing I can imagine and being happy is a good first step.

false dichotomy alert

How come Happiness and Productivity have become opposite things. Why there is no happiness in Productivity ?

Can an unhappy person be truly productive, not just doing some thing mechanically and painfully ?

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