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> let topics-of-the-day drive you crazy

Oh yeah, chasing fads and news cycles is miserable -

> "I don't have kids because it's bad for the environment" or "I never got married, too busy with my career"

There are, uh, extremely not "being driven crazy by topics-of-the-day." Let alone even being joyless choices.

Being poor is very stressful. I would argue that well-off people have way more freedom to make choices to be happy.

> plenty of poor people find a way to be at peace with what they have (and even strive to do better w/o being resentful) , have families, etc.

There is a definite floor to this definition of “poor” and a ton of people live below it.

That is true. It's also true that truly happy people live in places in Africa with actually the bare minimum calories, barely functioning shelter, and not the best prospects for medicine.

How do you know they are truly happy? I am sure they wouldn't mind proper food, housing and medical care.

Also note that until industrialism started 250 years ago, all of humanity lived is those conditions.

You and I would NOT be happy there, but they were probably as happy as we are on average.

You can react to the hand you're dealt in better or worse ways, and that's important, but that doesn't AT ALL mean the hand is unimportant.