Wednesday, June 23, 2010
The secret to a happy life
Crikey, what a day today is for this blog. Not only am I giving you the reason why humans are more intelligent than animals, but now for the secret to a happy life! I should charge for this.
Anyway it is this: Do not compete or compare yourself or your circumstances to anyone else's.
This is why: The "happiness quotient" of any given situation is relative to someone else's situation. So if you don't contemplate how happy someone else is in their situation, you'll be none the wiser as to how happy you should be.
For example, take being stuck in a traffic jam, of which there are two lanes, and suddenly the other lane starts moving forward. Does this make you more peeved than when the other lane was stationary? Probably, as we're only human. But your situation hasn't changed, but the H.Q (my acronym for Happiness Quotient) has gone down relative to the other persons, since they are happier since they are moving. But if your situation hasn't changed, logically there's no reason to be unhappy. So stop it by not comparing your situations!
Anyway it is this: Do not compete or compare yourself or your circumstances to anyone else's.
This is why: The "happiness quotient" of any given situation is relative to someone else's situation. So if you don't contemplate how happy someone else is in their situation, you'll be none the wiser as to how happy you should be.
For example, take being stuck in a traffic jam, of which there are two lanes, and suddenly the other lane starts moving forward. Does this make you more peeved than when the other lane was stationary? Probably, as we're only human. But your situation hasn't changed, but the H.Q (my acronym for Happiness Quotient) has gone down relative to the other persons, since they are happier since they are moving. But if your situation hasn't changed, logically there's no reason to be unhappy. So stop it by not comparing your situations!
Why are humans more intelligent than animals?
A theory to answer this popped into my head the other day, so I thought I'd better write it down before I forget:-
My theory is that it is because we are hardwired to desire social interaction almost as much as pure survivial. Animals are only hardwired to survive. The human desire for social interaction requires much more intelligence (e.g. to learn to communicate) and in turn we gravitate towards those that seem the most "social" (e.g. witiest, more friendly etc...), thus increasing social/intelligence skills in a Darwin kind of way.
(This is all coming straight from my head as I type it. One day I might re-word it to make slightly more sense).
My theory is that it is because we are hardwired to desire social interaction almost as much as pure survivial. Animals are only hardwired to survive. The human desire for social interaction requires much more intelligence (e.g. to learn to communicate) and in turn we gravitate towards those that seem the most "social" (e.g. witiest, more friendly etc...), thus increasing social/intelligence skills in a Darwin kind of way.
(This is all coming straight from my head as I type it. One day I might re-word it to make slightly more sense).
It's Not Fair!
If life was fair, we'd all be dead at 67.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time)
