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Comment by niyazpk | Hacker News Reader

After all the books I've read, after all the time I've spent on learning, solving problems and exercising my brain, after all the self-help/marketing/how-to blogs I've gone through, after all the effort I've taken on becoming a better person, after all the sacrifices I've made by going out of my way to help other people to make their lives better, I have found that there are many people who are better than me in many ways I cannot even begin to imagine, not because they try to be, not because they are more intelligent than me, not because they have any incentive to be, not because they are better educated, but probably because they just are, probably because they grasp the beauty of life better than me on a scale that I am not able to comprehend, probably because there is more to life than being successful and being better, whatever that means, or probably because of some other reasons I will never understand.

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It seems like being depressed over that conclusion is just a form of vanity. It's a fine line between comparing yourself to others in order to learn from them and reevaluate your direction, and comparing to satisfy or starve your ego.

Exactly my point. :)

yes excellent restatement

I think you need to realize that life is not a competition in any way, life is not about being best.

Life is not like a RPG where you gain experience(points) in skills to increase your overall level. It doesn't matter how much you improve your external life, it's how you think that really matters. A poor person can be much happier than a rich and externally successful person, it's how the person is thinking about the beauty of life that really counts.

"Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within." - Helen Keller

"The person who lives life fully, glowing with life's energy, is the person who lives a successful life." - Daisaku Ikeda

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. - Unknown

No man is happy who does not think himself so. - Publilius Syrus

Look inward and find the peace within. As you do so, the outer world will reflect the peace you feel - Unknown

You might be seeking external validation from other people. I've been there myself, I've improved greatly on certain things and when finally been awesome at it realized that it didn't really matter and that there were more important and way more simpler things I should have focused on to improve my life instead.

Improving your mind can be really hard even though it's damn simple in theory. The best way to be happy is to be happy. How do you gain happiness? By being happy.

You'll have to find a way to realize that you're happy in order to be happy. You can't say "I'm happy" without truly believing it with all your heart, it won't work. You have to KNOW that you're happy in order to be happy.

Granted, archiving external goals (being successful with women, socializing or work/business for example) is a great way to to convince yourself that you have everything you need in order to become happy - and happiness follows.

However, you must realize that happiness can not be gained be archiving goal after goal, it must come from within.

I liked your post, niyazpk, because it moves from the implicit comparison to looking internally for the reasons one is stuck in such and such a place.

Friends are not bad/good people as much as certain relationships are destructive while others are healthy. But this is not a permanent state - and ultimately says more about oneself than one's friends.

This pruning off of friends is perhaps a necessary step in some cases - reminds me of the '12-step program' idea of not associating with the people you drank/smoked/particpated in unsafe sex with/etc. But ultimately it says more about the person themselves than it does about the goodness/badness of those friends. There are people who can drink and not have it ruin their lives... If you are not one of them but you are hanging around people who can socially drink - they are not the problematic ones.

When we are stuck we tend to look outwards for reasons that we are stuck and place blame externally.

There is one of Montaigne's essays that I enjoyed since school days, #4 in book 1 called something like "the soul discharges its passions on false objects when the true ones are wanting". There are some very funny anecdotes - some classical and some more contemporary of people essentially finding external causes for their griefs or gouts. The essay builds to a climax with an example of Ceasar defying Neptune after being shipwrecked and the author ends with a brilliant single sentence paragraph:

"But we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies of our minds."

This is one example in literature of a remarkable turn from external to internal - a moment of crushing realization that you create most of your own pain and discomfort and the first step to freedom from this is this realization. Whether is it Buddha's Fire Sermon, Eliot's "Waste Land", Rilke's "Headless Torso of Apollo" - this is the answer. Not ditching friends.

We move to Portland because we are not doing well in New York (or vice versa). The change in scenery will do us well for 6 months and that might be enough to set on a new track. But more likely you find out you are still the same person internally - that will creep back in.

I have had moments in my life where I have been in a magnificent place and yet for whatever reason i happened to be miserable that day. Firenze, Mongolia, Cat Ba Islands in Vietnam. Beautiful striking places and on those days struck with deep blueness (i will not use that oft-misused word depression here). And being in those places intensified the self loathing:

"... you asshole - how could you be miserable here!..."

And the answer is always the same - because I am miserable. Not because my girlfriend is 8000 miles away (and p'raps not so faithful :-0 ); not because of friends or lack of friends or type of friends.

Did you rent a scooter and rider around Cat ba island? Good times...

Beautiful place. Actually took a boat around the bay and spent some time on one of the smaller islands. Also did som cave exploring...

I'm not sure what the point of your post is. Even if you're in the top 0.1% of the country, based on whatever combination of criteria you prefer, there will still be hundreds of thousands people that are better than you. It's a statistical fact that should have no bearing on your happiness.

Maybe they're better looking than you?

(but seriously, I don't think making sacrifices is particularly good for your character)

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