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RobbBB comments on Open thread, Feb. 9 - Feb. 15, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I'm not sure how to ask this... but is anyone like really and genuinely happy on a day-to-day basis? Hour-to-hour? I'm curious as to what the upper bounds of human happiness are. In my 22 years experience of observing humans, I can't recall anyone I've ever met who appeared to be "really and genuinely" happy on a day-to-day basis. Everyone I've ever met seems to be what I'd describe as "chugging along".
Another way to possibly pose my thought - assume that I'm average, and consider the top 10% of my experiences to be Happiness. Does anyone's median experience fall within my top 10%?
I'd say I'm very far from 'chugging along' -- I have ups and downs, I'm high-energy, etc. But I do have worries, anxieties, bouts of sadness, so I'm not sure how to quantify how 'truly happy' I am.
I feel 'average' from the inside, but when I compare my external behavior to others', I often look like I have deeper reservoirs of energy, enthusiasm, patience, adaptiveness-to-pain, adaptiveness-to-disaster, etc. That makes me think I'm cognitively and affectively privileged in ways that give me an above-average number of spoons, wherewithal tokens, stamina points, etc.
I would guess that my median experiences are in the top 15% of a typical American's experiences, but I'm not confident because it might be that people are still having a pretty fun time in absolute subjective terms even when they act grumpy.