"When I turned 60, I decided to run a little experiment on myself. For six months, I tracked everything that genuinely lifted my mood... not what I thought should make me happy, but what actually did. I'd been reading about happiness research for years, writing about it, even teaching others about it. But something shifted when I hit this milestone. Maybe it was becoming a father to my daughter recently,"
"For most of my life, I've been obsessed with productivity. Every moment needed to be optimized, every hour accounted for. But you know what consistently showed up in my happiness tracking? The times I sat on my balcony in Saigon, watching the chaotic ballet of motorbikes below, doing absolutely nothing of value. No podcast playing. No book in hand. Just me, a cup of coffee, and the beautiful randomness of life unfolding."
A person at age 60 tracked every activity that genuinely lifted mood for six months, keeping an evening journal of daily moments of genuine joy. Half of the long-pursued achievements produced little happiness, while seemingly trivial activities became unexpected happiness sources. Repetitive, familiar conversations and unstructured, idle moments delivered high mood boosts. Sitting on a balcony and watching life unfold without doing anything scored higher than many accomplishments. The brain benefits from pockets of nothingness to process and integrate experience. Occasional deliberate unproductivity reduced the pressure to optimize and produced sustained increases in well-being. The findings suggest reprioritizing idle moments and simple social interactions over constant achievement.
Read at Silicon Canals
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