LW4EA: How to Be Happy

Written by LW user lukeprog.

This is part of LessWrong for EA, a LessWrong repost & low-commitment discussion group (inspired by this comment). Each week I will revive a highly upvoted, EA-relevant post from the LessWrong Archives, more or less at random

Excerpt from the post:

One day a coworker said to me, “Luke! You’re, like, the happiest person I know! How come you’re so happy all the time?”
It was probably a rhetorical question, but I had a very long answer to give. See, I was unhappy for most of my life,¹ and even considered suicide a few times. Then I spent two years studying the science of happiness. Now, happiness is my natural state. I can’t remember the last time I felt unhappy for longer than 20 minutes.
That kind of change won’t happen for everyone, or even most people (beware of other-optimizing), but it’s worth a shot!
We all want to be happy, and happiness is useful for other things, too.² For example, happiness improves physical health,³ improves creativity,⁴ and even enables you to make better decisions.⁵ (It’s harder to be rational when you’re unhappy.⁶) So, as part of a series on how to win at life with science and rationality, let’s review the science of happiness. (Full Post on LW)

Please feel free to,

Discuss in the comments
Subscribe to the LessWrong for EA tag to be notified of future posts
Tag other LessWrong reposts with LessWrong for EA.
Recommend additional posts