> How do you escape the trap? How do you make yourself happier without worrying about happiness?
I think part of the answer is in the quotation you quote: "the happiest people are probably those who are content and don't spend all their time wondering about how happy they are.".
My experience agrees with that! For instance, less than 30 minutes ago I went take my kid to the kindergarten and on my way back saw an house for sale, and my automatic response was something like "why do others have money and I can't get a higher paying job". Fortunately, I was paying attention to my thoughts, caught that one on time, and reminded myself that I do already own a house, it's almost payed, and I do have a good (enough) life.
> It seems like a meditation discipline could be helpful for addressing this. How else would you tackle it?
What I try to do is to catch those kind of thoughts before they make serious damage, and realistically remind myself of the path that I chose and what I have now as consequence.
I wouldn't say that I can do it successfully every time, as I've been lately fighting these exact thoughts that I should earn more money (because of small kid, family, inflation, etc.), and I enter a spiral of reading HN for posts about people switching from academia to industry (my current dilema), and lose sleep, and get tired. But after some time (used to be months, now weeks), I try to calm down, realize that yes I'm bored but I do have enough free time, earn above average (for the country, not for the industry), and an interesting opportunity may appear eventually.
So, I'm not a perfect example of success, but I do try my best to remind myself to be content with what I have achieved so far. It's a balance, and it's hard to strike. And being content (some of the times) doesn't mean that I've reached "nirvana".
Don't know if what I wrote makes sense (still tired), but hope it helps.. :/
I think part of the answer is in the quotation you quote: "the happiest people are probably those who are content and don't spend all their time wondering about how happy they are.".
My experience agrees with that! For instance, less than 30 minutes ago I went take my kid to the kindergarten and on my way back saw an house for sale, and my automatic response was something like "why do others have money and I can't get a higher paying job". Fortunately, I was paying attention to my thoughts, caught that one on time, and reminded myself that I do already own a house, it's almost payed, and I do have a good (enough) life.
> It seems like a meditation discipline could be helpful for addressing this. How else would you tackle it?
What I try to do is to catch those kind of thoughts before they make serious damage, and realistically remind myself of the path that I chose and what I have now as consequence.
I wouldn't say that I can do it successfully every time, as I've been lately fighting these exact thoughts that I should earn more money (because of small kid, family, inflation, etc.), and I enter a spiral of reading HN for posts about people switching from academia to industry (my current dilema), and lose sleep, and get tired. But after some time (used to be months, now weeks), I try to calm down, realize that yes I'm bored but I do have enough free time, earn above average (for the country, not for the industry), and an interesting opportunity may appear eventually.
So, I'm not a perfect example of success, but I do try my best to remind myself to be content with what I have achieved so far. It's a balance, and it's hard to strike. And being content (some of the times) doesn't mean that I've reached "nirvana".
Don't know if what I wrote makes sense (still tired), but hope it helps.. :/