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Comment by alexashka | Hacker News Reader

Humans are not made to be happy. That's the one and only 'disappointment' to tattoo onto your brain, so that you don't spend your life thinking a utopia aka engineering happiness is possible or a good idea.

People are 'unhappy' because they're not at the top of the social hierarchy. The people at the top are not happy because everyone wants a piece of them and they get no peace.

It's all bullshit. Just live your life.

Only my opinion of course :)

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I think the social hierarchy thing is less about being on top and more about being a fundamentally important character in a larger story. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that theoretically there's some arrangement in which everyone could feel as though they're exactly where they should be, and are playing exactly the role they should within that story. Not a supporting role, or a subservient role, but a role which was really THEM. People don't want to be a pawn in somebody else's game in order to be respected.

How exactly you get there is totally beyond me, and I'm not entirely sure how to articulate what I mean by "story". But I think you lose something when you give up on trying to engineer stories with happy endings. I don't think you can really live your life fully unless you have some sort of hope for the future.

I have a different out take. I try to always be happy, choose it, it’s an attitude. Let the little things make you happy. A joke amount friends, a smile, A tasty ice cream cone, whatever, “live in the moment”

But never be satisfied, always strive for a little more. That’s human nature. The trick is to strive for growth, and it doesn’t have to be for material things. Strive to lean more, to grow your career, to save up or budget for that thing you want, or to travel to that place. Never stop exploring. That’s the key. You gotta channel that strive for something that won’t leave u empty when u get there, and realize that voice is always gonna be in the back of your head saying, “well now what do I want”

Agree with this 100%. There are choices with our moods, as well as opportunities to observe and marvel at them (both during the ups and downs).

“Humans are not made to be happy”

This is really important.

We didn’t become the dominant species on this planet because contentment was easy to find.

Humans are designed to always want more, even if they have more than anyone alive ever has.

Understanding this can lead to contentment because whenever you find yourself unhappy, it’s much easier to be ok with it if you realize that’s the natural state of being.

Maybe this is a fundamental flaw that needs to be engineered out of a large percentage of the population if we are to survive? This seems dystopian to me and a better solution would be to embrace our desire to grow and expand out to the solar system/stars.

I don't think that's true. There was 100,000 years of human behavior before we started to do that (i.e. before civilization and expansion). It seems more like a cultural thing.

Most civilizations that were content with their way of life were more than likely exterminated at the hands of civilizations that skewed towards unhappiness. Or exterminated by their contentedness.

*Non-happy or neutral is the default state of being. Unhappy is the opposite of happy while non-happy is just 'not happy'.

Yes. It is great to feel happy. But also great to be unhappy (in measure) The true purpose is simply to live and experience life to its fullest extent. Chasing or expecting happiness as normal is a direct path to misery.

Anyone interested in learning more about this idea should look up Saghguru.

I had a friend with a wonderful yearbook quote: "The secret to happiness is contentment."

Pretty wise for an 18 year old.

I think your opinion is mostly right

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