It's fairly amusing to me that this essay can explain away the vast majority of my existential angst. As much as I hate to admit it, I had an 'aha' moment while reading this.
What I really enjoyed about this post was that it talked about using research to come to an explicit algorithm to learn optimism. I could never swallow the advice of many optimistic people in my life since they [through no fault of their own, mind you ;)] were not usually hackers. As such, they would explain in broad and nebulous terms how they achieved said happiness, which makes sense, since--according to the essay--they see positives as general and permanent. I would always focus on their seemingly obvious contradictions, without really noticing my own. I guess I'm just glad someone finally pointed that out to me.
As much as I hate to admit it, I had an 'aha' moment while reading this.
I know that feeling, but I wonder if that might be another tendency worth training away. "Aha" moments are one of the greatest pleasures in life and should be actively sought out.
Trying to always know everything is a tyranny from which I would like to escape.
Thanks! And pull request sent (feel free to change the formatting, I just took a stab at it).
Tangentially, I signed up for github in that process (I know, I can already see my geek cred dwindling). I've downloaded projects from there many times, but I suppose since my repositories are on google code I never had a reason to create an account. It was incredibly simple and enjoyable to use. Very slick!
What I really enjoyed about this post was that it talked about using research to come to an explicit algorithm to learn optimism. I could never swallow the advice of many optimistic people in my life since they [through no fault of their own, mind you ;)] were not usually hackers. As such, they would explain in broad and nebulous terms how they achieved said happiness, which makes sense, since--according to the essay--they see positives as general and permanent. I would always focus on their seemingly obvious contradictions, without really noticing my own. I guess I'm just glad someone finally pointed that out to me.