Ignorance and Happiness

How much about happiness is simply not knowing that there are alternative ways of doing things? Are people in information-deprived…

Ignorance and HappinessHow much about happiness is simply not knowing that there are alternative ways of doing things? Are people in information-deprived…


How much about happiness is simply not knowing that there are alternative ways of doing things? Are people in information-deprived countries happier in the sense that they do not know, or simply care, that there are different ways of living?

I find this question fascinating.

In the same way that citizens of third world countries may not be able to understand the life of a teenager growing up in a middle-class family in a capitalistic, free-democracy, I would bet the opposite also holds true.

It comes down to a lack of empathy for things we do not understand.

I think this problem is very evident in the search for “the meaning of life.” In America, many search for this via a career. And that career (and how you get to it) is guided by your perspective / how you decide based on the number of options you see in front of you.

Yet we often are blinded by the number of options.

In some ways, there are too many options. We could literally do anything (we think).

In other ways, we have no idea what the options really are because we have yet to experience so many different parts of the world.

We could move to East Asia and spend ~ 2k /mo. and be perfectly happy traveling the world.

We could move to a socialist country and start a family.

We could literally do anything.

Yet, we are confined to our imaginations. And our imaginations shrink as we get older because we get tired of fighting against the current.


Originally published at gonen.blog.

By jordangonen on February 3, 2018.

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Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.