86Thousand400: A bit more on happiness

When economists and others talk about delayed gratification, they are implicitly referring to sacrificing pleasure now for pleasure later. When happiness is defined as experiences of both pleasure and purpose, the circumstances under which it is sacrificed for the pursuit of achievement are potentially more limited. So the less pleasurable things should at least feel purposeful. Serious athletes provide a good example for they give up a lot of fun in their lives in order in order to make it to painful early-morning training sessions . This could be seen as delayed gratification, but I believe that these athletes experience purposeful gratification from training. Just as there is pain from the lactic acid in their muscles, they feel sentiments of purpose too. My research and my experiences tell me that life is less about trading off happiness now for happiness later (and vice versa) and more about trading off pleasure and purpose at different rates at different times.

Life satisfaction ratings are higher those who:

1. are wealthier 2. are young or old (not in forties/fifties) 3. are healthier 4. have lots of social contact 5. are married or cohabiting 5. are a little more educated 6. are religious 7. have a job 8. commute a short distance to work

Although you can't consciously choose how your dog runs around a field, you can choose which park to take it to. We are a lot like dogs in how we react to situational triggers. (Environment key)

For stars in sport like weight lifting, golf, and snooker, thinking consciously about the task can lead to "choking" - freezing up and failing because of the pressure of the situation

It is well established that you will feel uncomfortable when there is a discrepancy between what you think and what you do. This is known as cognitive dissonance. In such circumstances, it is much simpler to bring your attitudes in line with your behaviour than vice versa

Like most things in life, you need balance, though probably a shift toward more experiential goods over more material ones

New experiences will help slow down time. Part of the reason time passes slowly for children is because they are constantly having new experiences. It appears as if our brains actually calculate time based on the number of events that occur; so the more events, the more time we feel has passed. If you saw six slides for thirty seconds each and thirty slides for six seconds each, you would think that you had spent more time looking at the thirty slides even though the time is obviously the same overall. This could explain why you recall that a day has passed quickly when you're in meeting after meeting but slowly when you're just at your desk

Too often, I think, we treat happiness as if it is fungible - as if, like money, it can be moved around relatively easily. But while saving money for a rainy day that never comes is sad, giving up on happiness now for later happiness is truly tragic

I've learned the word "attention" comes from the Latin for "reach toward". I really hope you are now better placed to reach toward the ultimate prize of maximising your happiness according to the Pleasure Purpose Principle. The more time you spend attending to the things that make you happy, the happier you will be. And stop doing things that make you miserable. Change what you do not how you think. You are what you do, your happiness is what you attend to, and you should attend to what makes you and those whom you care about happy

Let me restate that future happiness cannot compensate for current misery; lost happiness is lost forever. Powered by your own attention production process, there is no better time than now to crack on with finding pleasure and purpose in everyday life

Hedonism is the school of thought that holds that pleasure is the only thing that matters in the end. By adding sentiments of purpose to pleasure, I define my position as sentimental hedonism. I am a sentimental hedonist and I think that, deep down, we all are

If you judge someone by the company they keep, then I am a truly wonderful person!