I'm not really antisocial. In fact, I can become overtalkative at times when in a social setting. But, given the option, I never seem to want to 'get out' and socialize. Though, when I force myself to, I am in such a better mood for a few days. Then, back to normal, and avoiding social gatherings again until the next time.
At some point you may have intuitively associated meeting with people with that exhaustion and balanced your NN towards “not meeting” by default, hence the doominess feeling.
Active, conscious steps I took to get me out of that:
1. Recognise that being social brings you something internal (mood improvements)
2. Recognise that being social costs you some energy (depletes a battery)
3. Stop self-bashing for “not being social” at times (battery needs topping up)
4. Create a positive feedback loop instead of a negative one, by having less long/intense social interactions but more frequent, so that the battery never truly runs out and has time to recharge quickly
This takes time as the NN has to be retrained to break the default fight or flight reaction of staying in the safe zone at home.
It’s a bit like enjoying running a marathon and have a happy and relaxed mind following that, but the body is exhausted and certainly doesn’t want to run again back to back as it needs time to recover.
The introvert trait will not go away but the battery can be trained and improved in capacity, and end up looking forward to meeting people as long as it’s properly managed.
If you're treating this like a diet or exercise regimen, it will probably turn out the way most of those turn out.
Instead, maybe think about the other people involved and consider them important as well. There are plenty of people that need some attention, care, resources, advice, and so on. If people come to rely on you, it is motivating, meaningful, and is more in line with the Golden Rule. I'm sure most of us would rather be friends with someone than be their weekly dose of socializing.
If you really don't like people, help out animals. Or the environment. Or "the commu ity". As long as it's part of a team.
I'm wondering what does NN mean, am I losing some context?
Worst period of my life was single and living alone. Way too easy to go home after work and never meet or talk to anyone outside of work.
Coupled with meditation that makes you more mindful so you can be more kind (kindfullness), you can attain a state of mind in which you can remain happy most of the time. The problems of the world will continue to be there but those will decreasingly have lesser impact on your inner state of happiness.
0: I track and share my random act of kindness (RAKs) on Black Lotus along with logging/measuring my meditation/chanting sessions (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rt.pinpric... )
1: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/want-to-be-happier-give-m_b_6...
Happiness is overvalued. Meaning or purpose is undervalued.
Happiness is based on a transition: something new, a change of circumstances, and is by its nature temporary. Meaning and purpose are long term.
Seek meaning, not happiness.
I don't think it is unusual for people to have an averse reaction to investing in themselves, although it does look illogical from the outside.
For me, I just feel like crap. I've run a marathon before and done a lot of other types of exercise, but that 'glow' that people report having is not something that I've ever gotten. I don't feel good after a workout or during one; I feel tired, gross, and irratiable.
Most of my weekends are already assigned and I purposely allow for some rest days. And I usually allow for some spontaneous requests to hang out.
I'm happier than I've ever been and I know more people now than I've ever known.
You still need time to yourself so you should respect that but knowing that these people care about me is nice :)
> I am in such a better mood for a few days
I get incredible anxiety after meeting people that disappears after a few days. It's not worth it at all and I'm extremely happy if I just avoid people.
you can be talkative or you can go in to deep meditation in the middle of a crowd. whatever be it do it consciously. remove all guilt and all negativity from it. experience everything deeply - silence or noise.
If you think you are doomed you will be doomed.
>I'm not really antisocial
If you think you are not really antisocial you will be not really antisocial.
>I can become overtalkative at times
If you think you can become overtalkative you will be able to become overtalkative.
>I never seem to want to 'get out'
If you think you never seem to want - you will never seem to want
>when I force myself
If you think you force yourself - you will force yourself.
>I am in such a better mood
If you think you are in a better mood - you will be in a better mood.
>back to normal
If you think you are back to normal - you will be back to normal.
Once you reach a place beyond thinking you will gain control over these things.
Or rather, the actually important part (how to do it) is concise to the point of not even being included!
1. The study started in 1938, which is a very different time comparing to today. Young people has way more options to enjoy life alone such as traveling, playing video games, watching youtube by themselves just to name a few.
2. The participants are mostly 90 years old now and it is understandable that they prefer relationship comparing to 20 years old folks nowadays.
3. Also, I don't see any information about the amount of friends. Is it the same having 1 friend vs 100 friends vs 1000 friends on facebook? Probably not.
4. Just seeing some random participants in their 70' in year 2000 saying they are more happy with friends is not really useful for people today. It would be nice to see the chart moving based on different time (2000 vs 2019) for different generation group.
5. "the search for happiness can become a source of unhappiness", is kind of depressing and confusing. Is going out with a friend consider "search for happiness"? I "can become" a billionaire buying lottery tickets, does that mean I should or shouldn't buy the ticket? It is based on the success rate and this article is missing that data.
I say you should evaluate from time to time if having friends or not (and how many) make you better or happier. I disagree that spending time with others ALWAYS make you happier. For example, I dislike traveling with large group of friends due to noise, planning and logistic issues.
I also believe personality types play a large part, for example I'm an introvert, and while spending time with others makes me happy - that can easily be negated if I spend too much time with others or don't have a chance to come up for air (e.g. some alone time).
Not to mention the personality types of others as well. I have introverted friends whom I can quite happily spend weeks at a time with (low energy, deep conversations, no awkwardness with silence), and on the other end of the scale there are friends who are extremely extroverted whom I cannot spend more than several hours with (high energy, shallow and constant changing of topics being discussed, a feeling of awkwardness when there is silence).
I've never quite bought this argument. Yes, the choices are different. 100 years ago travel might be by train. Or hitch-hiking. Instead of video games you had a deck of cards and played solitaire. Today we have MMORPGs, back then it was again cards, sitting around a table. They didn't watch YouTube, but absolutely read books and newspapers.
It can become maladaptive reward seeking behaviour, similar to addiction.
This is killing time not enjoying life.
Spending time with others gives us break from that.
I, otoh, find it very meditative. And my recent hobby/passion/activity are the long (in time and duration walks— 30-100km). These are organized events, so lots of people go, sometimes in thousands (most choose shorter distances though), but I go alone and it is so… healing(?) experience. For 5-18 hours you are just with yourself and your thoughts. There is nothing you can do, just walk. Sure, one can listen to audiobooks or music, but I choose not to—it spoils the experience somehow.
I'd have thought at least once a week would qualify as regular. Once a month seems really irregular, I couldn't imagine seeing my friends only a dozen times a year. Is this common?
Also, a revelation I’ve had as a millennial gay man is because the rate of having kids is relatively low among gay men in particular, anecdotally gay male friends stay in touch at a higher rate than straight counterparts even as we get older.
Not necessarily always a good thing, though. Especially in SF gay culture feels even more “Peter Pan” like.
Now we see each other, at max, once every few months. That's just adulthood, and tbh it seems natural.
An active Whatsapp group and a quarterly weekend away together is enough to keep the bonds strong.
My wife and I have some couple friends and our schedules are hardest to align. (Kids, work, family time). And then we both have some single friends without kids, with which we can just choose any time and it will probably work to meet up.
That's just part of getting older and starting a family I suppose. Priorities shift a bit :)
The irony is that I frequently don't because of some circumstances that I live in, but I'm working hard to change change that.
Does it matter with whom?
How about people openly disrespecting you under the guise of friendship? (I've seen this happen thousands of times, never understood why people tolerate it)
How about backstabbers? How about people envious of you?
My point is - does it really have the same effect on you, regardless of the quality of relationship?
For example, let's say we took a loner and gave them a 24/7 health monitor system that also helped apply preventative and corrective treatments, would someone live just as long as someone with a social support network? Presumably at some point in the near future we're going reach that level of technical accessibility for the average consumer, I would wonder perhaps if the results would change when systems like these become commonplace.
I'd also be curious to see if the same thing regarding happiness could be said if someone had similar support networks that close friends bring, but without human interaction. For instance if same loner was to live out on an island alone but had reliable and easy access to all physical needs, lacked any serious threats to his well being, had enough to keep him busy, would he be just as happy as the those that responded in that report?
And in the context of the story, would it not be plausible that they would acclimate to being isolated from their peers? There is precedent. In WW2 there were Japanese soldiers that remained fighting their war for decades after Japan surrendered, cut off from anyone that they could feasible interact with as they still believed they were deep in enemy territory, coming out only when their commanding officer relieved them of duty.
So how long did they live? The BBC article mentioned a 'census' of the longevity of individuals we now are familiar with. The median life expectancy was 72 years. Pythagorus - 75, Hippocrates - 90, Plato - 80, etc. Of course there's some some selection bias there, but there is also other evidence of their longevity as well. For instance in Ancient Rome one could not hold the office of Consul until reaching the age of 43, first office was not available until age 30. Another mildly intriguing part anecdote there is that the life expectancy declined pretty substantially for those born in the latter part of the civilization (after 100BC) to only 66 years. The likely culprit there is the installation of significant public piping systems... made out of lead. They inadvertently poisoned themselves for centuries.
The article also goes on to analyze numerous other sources than tend to paint a recurring picture: there was high infant and youth mortality, but people who made it to adulthood tended to have a life expectancy not all that different than we do today. It seems to suggest that a large part of our increased life expectancy is not from the trillions of dollars we've spent on trying to find a [profit making] pill for everything, but instead from very simple things like access to clean water and food.
[1] - http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181002-how-long-did-ancien...
> all working-class people who were buried in common graves. The average age of death was 30, and that wasn’t a mere statistical quirk
Back to the BBC article, some of its source are dubious, and I suppose they were selected only because of their "selling power". For instance, the paper on Victorian life expectancy was debated here[^0] with much skepticism.
That's a massive leap.
Other things that killed a lot of young people are:
* childbirth
* infection
* disease, including the occasional plague that decimates a population.
Not to mention the quality of life difference of not losing non-fatal body parts and function to disease and infection.
"Robert Waldinger, the current director of the study, summarized – in what is now one of the most viewed TED Talks to date – the findings from decades of research. The main result, he concluded, is that social connections are one of the most important factors for people’s happiness and health. He said: “Those who kept warm relationships got to live longer and happier, and the loners often died earlier”."
Hence why I was musing about whether it was conclusive to actually say that the whether it was that act of having close relationships itself that made him see this result, or if the longevity he was seeing was a result of the inherent monitoring and support that occurs with peers. For instance, a spouse may notice a lump on her partner's back, or friends pitching in after someone is let go from a job. If we could somehow control for that support network, would that equalize the life spans of people in a study like this?
To be fair, this is just useless speculation. I doubt very much that it would be possible to run an experiment like this.
If you are unable to achieve that, you can easily feel like shit no matter the amount of interaction you have with others.
Some people are miserable without social interaction and others dislike it intensely.
And even if someone manages to build some statistics that proves the general answer is "yes", I suspect said answer will be of very little practical use to a given individual.
But all these things are indirect and involve (unreliable) mediums. There are ways to access this directly and be happy and ecstatic every single moment without literally anything.
Imagine, happiness on a click. Something like quick dopamine release without side effects.
I think maybe being with others is most pleasant when one has a healthy relationship with one's self.
Citation needed.
There was an article on HN a couple of weeks back about a guy who spent 20+ years alone in the woods and was perfectly happy for it.
> Citation needed.
for their experience?
I don't agree with the rest of your points, but the quoted one is key.
No studies to back this up, but I would say that you are decidedly better off being alone than being with (for lack of better word) evil people.
These are degrees of evil that seem to be tolerated but that's another topic.
In the end, it's literally all in our minds. It's technically in our control (balance of chemicals). Maybe we should devise a way to control them sentiently.
I haven't seen friends or family in months. There was a 5 year period where I didn't see anyone.
Time just goes by, and I'm so wrapped up in my own life that I don't notice.
I guess you meant this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_replacement_therapy
Drugs, music, meditation, adventure sports also provide that.
I like being with myself. So much so that I deliberately drive instead of flying so that I can have more "me time".
Ironically Self is the freedom. The problem is people haven't found what Self is and calling it all kinds of things.
One simple thing to look at - does it give you absolute freedom unconditioned by time and space? If not - this is not yet true Freedom.
Mental health - ok, that might be something that you can deduce based on examples (grumpy old solo grandpa that yells in the air - mental issues).
But can you really conclude just from common sense that human relationships have effect on your _physical health_?
