a common complaint where I'm from where I'm surrounded by lots of smart overachievers is that happiness is for stupid people or happiness is for lazy people a lot of times entrepreneurs will say I don't want to be happy because I want to be successful if I'm too happy perhaps I will lose my desire and I will no longer work hard and I will no longer be successful and like everything else there is some truth to this.

Generally the more intelligent you are the more you can see behind the facade of everyday life being easy or safe you can see all the risks and the downsides of the calamities that await us you can see the cynicism and manipulation behind so many things that are portrayed as being good for you or good for society you naturally become cynical and you signal your intelligence to cynicism very smart people will often communicate in purely cynical observations it's okay to not want to

be happy but we're going to explore together whether you can increase your happiness level without significantly lowering your drive and without significantly lowering your intellect so let's take the first one which is I'm not happy because I'm smart partially true you are unhappy partially because you know too much you've been exposed to too much you understand too much but that doesn't mean that you can't undo it and retain your intelligence you're not smart

because you're unhappy so don't get it backwards but yes you're unhappy because you're smart it means that it's going to take more work for you to be happy but the good news is smart people are good at figuring out the truth and it turns out the more you dig into certain deep truths the naturally freer and more peaceful you will become and that peace will itself lead to happiness if you're so smart why aren't you happy I absolutely believe that is true the beauty and being mentally high functioning in our society

is that you can trade it for almost anything if you're smart you can figure out how to be healthy within your genetic constraints if you're smart you can figure out how to be wealthy within your local environmental constraints if you're smart you can figure out how to be happy within your biological constraints but your biological constraints are a lot larger than you might think for people who have ever gotten drunk but on second Alex meditated deeply experienced altered states of mind through breathing and hypnotic techniques they turn into a

two versions of themselves that are much happier for brief periods of time now some of this is a fake pleasure driven happiness of course but there's some truth to it as well or you wouldn't desire that state so in a sense it can show you the dynamic range that you have as a human the ability that you have to go into certain states where you're happier is actually quite large so how do you nudge yourself in that direction on a perpetual basis as opposed to just visiting there by essentially stunning your mind into submission and silence.

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