Jeff

Happiness

I have heard and watched a few discussions on the idea of happiness. Not what makes someone happy but why certain people are happy and others not. The main discussion uses a comparison by trying to find the profile of those that are often more likely to be unhappy and those that are happy. The results are interesting, as people seem happier in worse conditions and those in great conditions seem to be more unhappy. I think this is caused by a bias in terms of what each defines as happy and has been something I have made an active effort to counteract.

Successful (in a global sense, so a solid job, certain home, food every night) people are considerably less happy than those who are struggling. Some theories range from survival instinct gives great mental rewards for succeeding in harsh conditions to the idea that people generally want a reason to be unhappy and those in successful positions end up always being unhappy due to the lack of obvious reasons. For me, it is more the latter than the former. Successful people seem to blow small things out of proportion as they are not checked into global reality for most of their day. Okay, that sounds cynical and mean, let me explain it better. In the day to day life of those who struggle to eat and sleep in mud huts or are in constant danger of being dragged into a war, small victories such as a good meal reward them with a positive reward as it is a big thing for them and they value these conditions. If the waiter is a bit slow for the meal is not a worry for them. Whereas those who are in a situation and life where many of those easy but small victories are expected, they find it harder to enjoy those facts and begin to dwell on “petty” issues. Things like getting stuck in traffic make them unhappy and ruin their days. The cause of this is that their status quo for life is very much higher than those who are much worse off. This causes a perspective shift that blows something as small as traffic out to be the negative equivalent of not getting a meal, but the positive reward of getting out of traffic is not equivalent of getting that much needed meal.

I have tried to keep perspective these past few years. When my flight gets delayed it is easy to get upset about having to spend an extra hour in an airport, but it is also easy to think that spending an extra hour in an airport is a pretty small problem to have in life. When the bed was pretty horrible in the apartment we stayed at in Hong Kong, it would have been easy to get annoyed/upset about it. But the real fact was that we were in our mid 20’s, employed, and could afford to spend the week of New Years in Hong Kong, and do so comfortably (financially at least). If we let a small thing like a bad bed ruin the rest of the overall great experience, we would have thrown out everything we worked for. It is easy to dwell on the small losses and lose sight of the big victories, because we have been trained to focus on the small and miss the large. There is a sort of pressure to expect the big picture and get lost in the details. People who complain that the kitchen doesn’t have a gas stove or the internet provider is bad (that is me) are the ones who miss the fact that they are able to afford to rent a great apartment in an enjoyable and (more importantly) safe area.

So I plead with you (whoever actually reads this) to continue to look at the big picture and let the small details become laughably petty. When Kim gets upset about some small detail and I laugh at her, she knows that I am laughing at the exaggeration and not her issue (like fighting about laundry or being annoyed by a rise in gas prices). Next time you have a good meal, remember how good the food was and not that the waitress’ breath smelled or she took a while to get you your check. When you drive home and have traffic, remember that you just got paid to do something that you (hopefully) enjoy and that you are on your way home to eat whatever you want and sleep in your own bed.

annual resolution post

So every year, I try to come up with some big resolutions for the new year. Every time after that I begin to fail at most of the resolutions, but the key here is most of them. This past year, Kim and I decided to try to overhaul our diet by limiting our intake of beef to once a week. This was a mix of both diversifying our diet and decreasing our red meat intake. We stopped paying attention around September, but overall (I, at least) have continued to eat red meat only once a week. My efforts of reading became secondary as I have spent more of my train rides coding, but I continue to read to some degree. I got married, which pretty much blew everything else that happened this year out of the water. I will probably write a 2012 wrap up post in the next day or so… I really need to write on this more. I have a recoded version of the admin side which should make it easier for me write more (since it is a pain to auth with the current system).

So anyways, onto the resolutions for next year. Every time I begin to think about the next year’s resolutions, I often put some through a sort of trial. In toying with some of the ideas, I think I have ironed out a few to stick with (for now). They are:

  • Keep a “lab notebook” This is something I have been trying for the past month, I am keeping an electronic journal of notes and daily work done in my professional field (both for work and for fun). I have been noting information related to various projects or technologies and keeping a daily summary of what I have accomplished and various thoughts on what I am working on. I hope to continue keeping this going, to track my progress and document my thoughts on stuff.
  • Take care of my photography I have written and worked on gallery uploads and taken pictures, yet none of the pictures have made it onto my site. I am debating switching from self hosting to something like flickr, but am not sure (they have a free 3 month trial of their pro service). I will probably take that for a spin and decide whether to trash or modify my current gallery code.
  • Finish some projects I have a good deal written for two of my projects (tamari and cimera) but have yet to finish them to a point where they are feasible. I also have a project related to work that is fairly far along, yet I have all but abandoned at this point. I really need to bite down and get these to a state where I can call them something other than alpha. I also need to put my admin page code up (it has been done for months and I have yet to stamp it down and start using it). I may also try to rewrite the site code at some point, as it has become more and more bloated and I have become more and more unsatisfied with messing with it.
  • Diversify my technology stack I have become fairly complacent in the languages and technologies I use. I could use for a change in window manager, major language(s), try to improve various application set ups, etc. I am becoming lazy when it comes to trying to improve the tools that I use, it makes me more and more dependent on a single application and not the knowledge I have in doing the task (example: I have been trying to write an application using pure JS, i.e. no jQuery, and it has been very tough).
  • Read I need to push the habit of reading more fiction and emphasize reading non fiction. I spend more time dicking around on my computer or watching TV when I get home, there is definitely room to improve that. (Maybe we will cancel our cable subscription ?)

So overall, a bunch of random efforts, most will probably not see the light of day. But my main goal is really just for me to adopt 1 or 2 of these and make them real habits I continue to follow for years to come (previously: giving up soda, diversifying my diet, switching to Linux, or giving up fast food). Maybe I will even write about my progress (and other things going on in my life.)

goals

What are my goals in life? What does it mean to have these goals and how should I manage/prioritize them? I have been thinking about the things I aspire for in my life, things I want to do or be during my time here. I have been starting to realize that goals change, things happen and achieving all of your goals is probably impossible as they begin to conflict (or you are a very focused and driven person). When I begin to think about the goals that conflict and learning that the decision needs to be/has already been made and giving up on one of these goals is a tough idea.

A simple example would be the goal of playing ultimate Frisbee in college and the goal of being healthy. After my doctor informed me that I would not be able to run again after my back surgery, it was tough. But it was necessary, I mean what is more important, being able to play a sport for a few years or to correct a physical issue that would potentially get worse if I waited? But giving up on that goal was still difficult because passing up a short term desire for something that is better in the long term makes sense, but that doesn’t make it easy. I still feel a large amount of regret for what could have been and what is (I cannot run any long distance without needing to walk and the time it takes is almost laughable, I could run faster for longer when I was an awkward 13).

I have begun to realize that this need to put goals aside/give up on them is going to happen a lot more. I am getting married in a week, that was not even a goal of mine a few years ago. I never really decided that I had to get married. I was not one of those girl hungry teenagers who would do anything for a girlfriend. But Kim just kind of fell into my lap in that I was not looking to find someone to date, I just met a girl, we got along, it felt right to try dating, and 4+ years later, here we are. I guess marrying her became a goal later on. With it, a lot of other goals have, and need to be abandoned/modified.

I feel like I need to set up a ritual, on the first of every month (or every other month) I need to make a list of all of my goals, all of them. This means short term things, like cleaning the refrigerator or learning a new programming language, and long term things, like career aspirations or athletic goals (since my being able to run 5 miles at an 8 minute pace isn’t happening any time soon). This gives a chance to then rank them in terms of desire to achieve them and chance to. Things like working for Google would be low, as that would probably require a move (the Chicago office is not very big for software engineers and the things that they do work on are not things I am interested in) and I think that would conflict with some of the other goals we have (for now). It also allows me for a chance to assess the requirements for some of the long term goals (like learning Japanese for my desire to live in Japan). I feel like if I do not keep my sites on my dreams and aspirations, a few years will go by and I will suddenly realize that I am missing some of the time I could use to work towards these things, maybe even miss them entirely, and regret that fact.

I have tried this in some form for the past year, trying to assess what I need to do for some long term goals. But the lack of structure and my not clearly writing down and defining each goal have made it ineffective. I have an idea in my head of what they could be, but it is still a chaotic mess of ideas. Time to organize and understand what all is flying around in there.