Our Mistaken Ideas About What Makes Us Happy

Source https://zenhabits.net/makes-happy/

By Leo Babauta

Most of us are operating on mistaken ideas about what gives us happiness — and these errors are costly.

Think about how you normally spend your days — and then think about whether that’s making you happy. Now think about the cost to your health and long-term happiness.

Let’s give a few examples, so you can see what I mean:

  • Social media: If you spend a lot of your time on social media, perhaps for it’s entertainment value or distraction from things stressing you out … notice if this leads to better or worse happiness and mental health. For many, it leads to worse mental health and less happiness, and has huge opportunity costs.
  • TV, Youtube or other entertainment: Same as social media — it usually has diminishing returns on happiness (10 hours of TV makes you less happy than 1 hour of TV), and huge opportunity costs.
  • Wo…

Source https://zenhabits.net/makes-happy/

By Leo Babauta

Most of us are operating on mistaken ideas about what gives us happiness — and these errors are costly.

Think about how you normally spend your days — and then think about whether that’s making you happy. Now think about the cost to your health and long-term happiness.

Let’s give a few examples, so you can see what I mean:

  • Social media: If you spend a lot of your time on social media, perhaps for it’s entertainment value or distraction from things stressing you out … notice if this leads to better or worse happiness and mental health. For many, it leads to worse mental health and less happiness, and has huge opportunity costs.
  • TV, Youtube or other entertainment: Same as social media — it usually has diminishing returns on happiness (10 hours of TV makes you less happy than 1 hour of TV), and huge opportunity costs.
  • Wo…

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