Success and Happiness

[Tyche]

JohnW wrote:

New here.  But I’ve broken down my formula for (personal) happiness to the following:

Relationships + Health + Financial Security = Contentment

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I'd add community/professional engagement to that and call it a winner. Welcome!

[Anne]

JohnW wrote:

New here.  But I’ve broken down my formula for (personal) happiness to the following:

Relationships + Health + Financial Security = Contentment

Click to expand...

I agree with this, but I think financial security is the least important, yet the one many people seem to focus the most on.  I have all 3 but if you pointed a gun at my head and told me I needed to give one up forever but could keep the other 2, that would be easy--I would give up financial security and keep the relationships and health.  I could still be pretty content with those 2, I just wouldn't be able to stop working.

[Infinity]

JohnW wrote:

New here.  But I’ve broken down my formula for (personal) happiness to the following:

Relationships + Health + Financial Security = Contentment

Click to expand...

Great idea!  I would like to add another one "Freedom/Time"

Look at Hong Kong, I can't image that life without freedom can be happy.

 

Relationships + Health + Financial Security + Community/Professional Engagement + Freedom/Time = Contentment

[EntrepreneurMD]

No wonder I think so highly of Buffet.

Just saw this, very fitting for this thread:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/01/billionaires-warren-buffett-bill-gates-agree-this-is-the-ultimate-test-of-how-you-have-lived-your-life.html

[burritos]

It's complicated. Discussions like this always reminds me of Fritz Haber. He was the father(with Carl Bosch) of nitrogen fixation, Haber process. 1/2 of all the nitrogen that is in the human biomass comes from this process. His discovery brought about the conversion of fossil fuel energy to synthetic fertilizer. This discovery enabled the world population to explode from 1.6 billion 100 years ago to 7.7 billion today. His nitrogen chemistry also led to the discovery of chlorine gas. His wife(clara immerwahr) a fellow scientist and pacifist, tried to discover an antidote, but her position was eliminated. She eventually shot herself in the heart(why no one will ever really know, but one could speculate). Many of Haber's extended family(including his half sister and her whole family) eventually were sent to Hitler's camps. He died alone and ostracized from his prominent peers as the man who brought about chemical warfare.

Was he happy? Was he sad? Was he successful? Did people remember him fondly? Was he good? Was he bad? Did he have an impact? Does it matter? Billions now exist where before him, nation states would go to war over bat guano.

[Kamban]

On any given day I have at least 10 things that I am unhappy about. It might be something to do with the office, something about the house we are constructing that has led to delays, unexpected bills and so on. They can range on a scale from 1 to 10 and the same thing that was a 9 while waking up can become a 2 later in the day.

Then there are 10 things I am happy about with the same scale of happiness.

And finally 20 things that neither bring happiness or unhappiness but needed to be done daily in order to move on in life.

So you could question me about happiness or unhappiness on different days and different hours and might get different answers, based on the moment. I don't search for deep philosophical meaning of happiness. I don't give much thought to monks being happy, Denmark being happiest country,  what Warren Buffet or Deepak Chopra thinks of happiness and meaning of life and how many people love me. I just live one day at a time and live with my success and happiness and unhappiness.

[StarTrekDoc]

Success does not necessarily equate or track with happiness.

Each have their own tracks and differ in perspective from the point of view and mentality of the answering party.

 

Success: positive impact on society -- leaving it in a better place than before myself

Happiness:  above and ability to provide adequately for generation past as well as securing my future generation with a better life so they too can achieve the same.

 

 

[SValleyMD]

To me...

Success: don’t know, don’t care. I’m satisfied with what I’ve done to date. Nothing really else excites me from here.

Happiness: thankful that I found what works for me and it’s incredibly simple.

1. Help my kids grow and develop as best as possible
2. Have as many fun and enjoyable family experiences or time together as possible
3. Work to make $ for 1,2 and 4.. but try and not work too much or keep stress as minimal as possible
4. Throw in some sunset golf rounds, games on tv with good food, and some good night sleeps sprinkled in and that’s enough for me

That has left me as happy as I could imagine though thankfully we haven’t dealt with any tragedies or huge curveballs, so I do recognize that luck.

Outside of that I really don’t care about anything else (politics, community, charities, religion.. so I won’t have much of an impact outside of my immediate family but honestly don’t care.. (though I do try and do the best I can for pts when at work)).

I think everyone has to find their own formula— though a lot of things can impact that including things outside of their control which is unfortunate.

[jfoxcpacfp]

Wow. This question has had me stumped since day 1. Maybe because, in my tiny realm, happiness is tied to a condition and, therefore, fickle. It seems “success” has a different meaning for all of us...and, yes, i realize that’s the reason for the question!

To me, happiness is living Zen.  For the record, I am not Buddhist nor do I practice meditation (on my to-do list!) so this is not coming from a fundamental religious belief. It’s practical, seems like common sense. As with all truly good things, difficult to achieve and even more difficult to maintain.

There are many benefits to aging - living Zen, even if only temporary, is one.

[Hatton]

jfoxcpacfp wrote:

Wow. This question has had me stumped since day 1. Maybe because, in my tiny realm, happiness is tied to a condition and, therefore, fickle. It seems “success” has a different meaning for all of us…and, yes, i realize that’s the reason for the question!

To me, happiness is living Zen.  For the record, I am not Buddhist nor do I practice meditation (on my to-do list!) so this is not coming from a fundamental religious belief. It’s practical, seems like common sense. As with all truly good things, difficult to achieve and even more difficult to maintain.

There are many benefits to aging – living Zen, even if only temporary, is one.

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Namaste.

[Hatton]

One comment on happiness as you age.  Having the time to do the things you did not have time to do when you were extremely busy with working.  Accepting the fact that some things you will never do.

[Kamban]

hatton1 wrote:

Accepting the fact that some things you will never do.

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In the earlier half of my life I had a wild imagination, wild aspirations and conviction that I  will be doing some things. Climbing Mount Everest or at least to Camp 1 or at least Kilimanjaro. Investing in a company like Amazon or Google at seed capital stage and making billions. Do some ground breaking research and win the Nobel Prize. Hang gliding off the shores of North Carolina ( I even went to the mountains near Poughkeepsie, NY to try and learn but chickened out). Traveling for a year around the world. Hiking in Patagonia. Sailing the Atlantic.

I agree some of these were wild dreams. Some could not mesh with my career as a physician. Some were difficult due to my difficulty in obtaining visas at that time by not being an US citizen. Now I just have to reconcile with the fact that all these things are not possible in my remaining years. But also take comfort in the fact that what I have achieved in my life is something that 90% of the world population have not done and unlikely to do so. Accept it and move on.

[q-school]

...

[Anne]

I am happy to say that reading Into Thin Air killed any nascent dreams I may have had about climbing Everest.

[CM]

jfoxcpacfp wrote:

There are many benefits to aging

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Good to know. :-) I'm still waiting but only 60.