One of the reasons I don't really understand how intelligence can mean optimization or goal-seeking is that I too have seen it negatively correlated with happiness. Happiness can mean many things but probably one big chunk of its meaning will be a felt reward for goals achieved so this disassociation does not really go well with it being an optimization or goal-reaching ability.

You have probably heard the Bertrand Russel quote (1951) "One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision." if there is any truth in it, the issue is that intelligence causes worrying and thus stress and unhappiness.

I may be a pessimist but often it felt unavoidable to me, the smarter you are, the more ways you can imagine how can things go horribly wrong.

Of course it is possible that it is another factor, let's dub it with a (not very) random variable name D, the D factor making you invest your mind into making up negative outcomes, not positive outcomes. Perhaps very intelligent people with very low D factor exist who can imagine a hundred ways how a plan can work better than expected.

But, alas, it seems smart people worry more than utopianize, come up with more negative outcomes than positive ones.

I wonder if there is a method to force your brain to imagine a potential positive outcome for every imagined negative one.