{"id":28493936,"date":"2020-02-12T15:02:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T15:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nav.al\/?p=28493936"},"modified":"2025-11-07T08:14:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T16:14:04","slug":"smart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nav.al\/smart","title":{"rendered":"If You\u2019re So Smart, Why Aren\u2019t You Happy?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Naval: <\/strong>\u201cHappiness is for stupid people.\u201d That\u2019s a common complaint I hear from smart overachievers. They think only dumb or lazy people can be happy. Entrepreneurs will say, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be happy because I want to be successful.\u201d They worry that if they get too happy they\u2019ll lose their desire and won’t work hard anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you increase happiness without losing your drive?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like everything else, there is some truth to this. Generally, the more intelligent you are, the more you can see behind the fa\u00e7ade of everyday life being easy or safe. You see all the risks and downsides\u2014the calamities that await us. You see the cynicism and manipulation behind so many things portrayed as being good for you or society. You become cynical, and you signal your intelligence through cynicism. Very smart people often communicate in purely cynical observations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s OK to not want to be happy. But we\u2019re going to explore whether you can increase your happiness without significantly lowering your drive or intellect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take the first objection: \u201cI\u2019m not happy because I\u2019m smart.\u201d This is partially true. You are unhappy partially because you know and understand too much. You\u2019ve been exposed to too much. But that doesn\u2019t mean that you can\u2019t be happy and retain your intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figuring out the truth will lead to happiness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But don’t get it backwards: You\u2019re not smart because you\u2019re unhappy; you\u2019re unhappy because you\u2019re smart. You can be happy and smart\u2014it\u2019s just going to take more work. The good news is, smart people are good at figuring out the truth. The more you dig into certain deep truths, the freer and more peaceful you will become. That peace will lead to happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re so smart, why aren\u2019t you happy? I absolutely believe that is true. The beauty of being mentally high functioning in our society is that you can trade it for almost anything. If you\u2019re smart, you can figure out how to be healthy within your genetic constraints and how to be wealthy within your environmental constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re smart, you can figure out how to be happy within your biological constraints. But your biological constraints are a lot larger than you might think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dynamic range of happiness is quite large<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve ever gotten drunk or achieved an altered state of mind on psychedelic drugs or through meditation, breathing or other hypnotic techniques, you have experienced brief moments of happiness beyond what you feel on a typical day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, some of this is a fake, pleasure-driven happiness. But there\u2019s truth to it; otherwise, you wouldn\u2019t desire that state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Achieving these brief states of happiness can show you how dynamic your range is\u2014and that range can be quite large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you nudge yourself in that direction on a perpetual basis, as opposed to visiting it by stunning your mind into submission and silence?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHappiness is for stupid people.\u201d That\u2019s a common complaint I hear from smart overachievers. They think only dumb or lazy people can be happy. Entrepreneurs will say, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be happy because I want to be successful.\u201d They worry that if they get too happy they\u2019ll lose their desire and won’t work hard anymore.<\/span> More <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[32,6],"tags":[67,65],"class_list":["post-28493936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happiness-2","category-podcast","tag-happiness","tag-personal-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIf You\u2019re So Smart, Why Aren\u2019t You Happy?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nav.al\/smart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If You\u2019re So Smart, Why Aren\u2019t You Happy?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cHappiness is for stupid people.\u201d That\u2019s a common complaint I hear from smart overachievers. 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