MONTHLY MULLINGš”
The Warrior Bear and Thinking About Happiness
Hiš TapanĀ here.
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Happy Sunday yāall!
Currently,
š What I am reading: Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through Its Language by Peggy Mohan - interesting so far!
The first two chapters talk about the Indo-Aryan migration, the roots of Sanskrit, and the change in Malayalam because of Brahmins.
āļø The book reintroduced me to the Battle of Ten Kings from the Rigveda which led to the formation of Kuru polity in ancient India. The battle āallegedlyā could be the inspiration for the Mahabharata epic.
š You Live In A Pixel (Read time: 7 mins)
Life is a picture, but you live in a pixel.
This is one of my favorite Tim Urban articles and I keep revisiting it from time to time. Letās understand it with a story.
Now, Joe has been wanting a promotion for quite some time. He is ambitious and focused on his career.
Not having the promotion has been making him quite unhappy š He doesnāt seem to enjoy life.
But after years and years of waiting, finallyā¦
He goes to work with a bounce in his step for the next few weeks. Even wishes everyone a very āHappy Mondayā! š
Until, one dayā¦
Soā¦ whatās happening? Joe is definitely better off than he was previously but why isnāt he happy? Itās the wrath of the Hedonic Treadmill.
ā We quickly tend to return to our base relative stable level of happiness. No matter if there are positive or negative events, you will return to your base level of happiness.
We tend to see our life as a rich picture, an epic story. The assumption is that the key to our happiness is in the broad components of the picture.
Sure, life is a picture. But you live in a pixel.
You live all the time in a single pixel, a single TODAY.
Humans can simulate future situations in their heads to predict what itāll be like to experience them, but that simulator doesnāt always work so well and tends āto make you believe that different outcomes are more different than in fact they really are.ā
- Tim Urban
š¤ That makes sense but what can you do about the Hedonic Treadmill? The answer is in the cliched advise, enjoy the journey and donāt worry about the destination.
The mundane TODAY is the actual experience of your life. When we feel gratitude towards what we genuinely have, it will make us happy.
We spend so much of our time looking up at the great things that will come our way and planning future happiness.
We donāt spend nearly enough time looking down and thinking about how badly we used to want so many of the things we currently have.
The idea is to have control over your desires and be content with what you have. Desire is the contract that you sign with yourself to be unhappy.
But who are we kidding? We are no Siddhartha Gautama š§š½āāļø
I cannot control my desires. For me, the goal is to be cognizant of how my brain functions to keep me constantly unhappy.
āØAnd then remind myself of the words of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,
Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
PS: The majority of the above illustrations and concepts are inspired by Tim Urban. I take no credit.
š» Corporal Wojtek - The Warrior Bear
After some serious life philosophy, I wanted to share a really random fun story I found in Reddit comments. If youāre a nerd like me, it could become a fun fact you can share š¤
In 1942, some Polish soldiers bought a bear cub from an Iranian boy. The bear was named Wojtek which means a happy warrior.
To provide for his ration and transportation, he was eventually enlisted as a soldier. Wojtek copied the other soldiers, drinking beer, smoking and even marching alongside them on his hind legs because he saw them do so š
During the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy in 1944, Wojtek helped move crates of ammunition and became somewhat of a celebrity. He quickly gained the rank of private and then was promoted to Corporal!š¤©
He was finally moved to Edinburgh Zoo in 1947 and died in 1963.
There are a bunch of memorials of Wojtek in Edinburgh, Scotland and Poland, even today.
šCOLD BREW MONEY
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