alt Hacker NewsTen Steps Towards Happiness (2015)
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Came in not expecting much, but those are all good points, expressed concisely.
I upped the font size on my Pixel recently and this is one of those sites where (in Firefox) the sidebar takes up more than 50% of the width of the screen and retains tiny text while the article itself wraps on a couple words per line.
The one thing I'd put in context is "don't waste time on commuting".
In Europe for sure and possibly many parts of Asia like Japan or bigger metropolises in China etc. most people will commute by public transport.
You can read. Whenever I had a job where I commuted at least an hour a day, the number of books I read, per month, went from 2–3 to 10 or more.
Related, earlier today:
The Price of Happiness (62 points, 32 comments)
Shortly before he passed during his AMA he offered some advice I try to follow.
Me
This doesn't really relate to psychopaths but I just wanted to say I've been a follower of yours for years since I discovered your state machine language, multi-threaded kernel and web server back in the 90's. The AMQP / ZMQ work you've done is inspiring. How do you do it?
Pieterh
Well, thank you! :)
I don't know how my brain works, but it likes to take huge, complex situations, learn them inside and out, and then and find simple paths through them. I've always done this since I was young. In software, that means writing simple things that solve large problems, well. In writing, this means explaining mind-boggling things in simple words.
It does take time.
I was just reminiscing about an old Pieter Hintjens post with my kids yesterday. They still hold up. RIP
(Needs a 2016 in the title)
wozniak simple formula i quite like : H = S − F: your Happiness on any given day is your count of Smiles minus your count of Frowns
>Don't take it all too seriously, we all die.
Wise wisdoms overall, to have this particular advise from someone who has passed away just hit a different notes.
There's an old Chinese proverbs on being happy:
"If you want to be happy for an hour, take a nap. If you want to be happy for a day, go fishing. If you want to be happy for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, help someone else".
I have been trying to square such suggestions for happiness with G.B. Shaw's quote:
> "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
The steps towards happiness basically require accepting the world as is and appreciating it as is. Does that mean happy people are reasonable? And if they are, does that mean that happy people do not drive progress? Are there happy AND unreasonable people?
[dead]
I cant' believe it's almost 10 years since he died. My favorite quote of his is "Who needs a bucket list when you have love?”
I wish more people would take his ideas seriously, especially his "Collective Code Construction Contract".