Happiness, Manifesting and SEU
One of the cornerstones of my theory of happiness is that one can be happy at any time. This means that 99% of the time, regardless of a person’s external situation, a person can be happy. No matter how much money you have, no matter if your have a wife or boyfriend, no matter if your are physically healthy, no matter if your are a POW or a person in jail, you can be happy in any moment.
How is manifesting included in my theory of happiness? Manifesting is a way of acquiring wealth, houses, cars, mates, and so on. In essence, manifesting changes your external environment by helping you to acquire persons or things. However, the acquisition of things only temporarily increases your level of happiness.
I think that manifesting falls under the category of maximizing ones subjective expected utility (SEU). SEU is a part of rational economic decisionmaking that attempts to maximize your resources. For instance, if I asked you to choose between two gifts, a hundred dollar bill and a thousand dollar bill, which one would you choose? Now, theoretically you can be happy with either gift. Nevertheless, you naturally choose the thousand-dollar bill. Why? As a rational human being, you always try to maximize your subjective estimated utility, so you choose the more valuable gift.
Your happiness skills are the source of long-term enjoyment, and maximizing SEU provides temporary pleasure. The problem with maximizing SEU (or acquiring external pleasures) is that eventually people adapt to their new pleasures, they return to their original level of happiness in a few months or weeks. Your brand-new shiny BMW after some time becomes just another car you own.
Pursue happiness and maximize SEU at the same time. If there is ever a time when your happiness suffers as you choose to maximize SEU, then choose happiness and be satisfied with slightly less SEU. This is the recipe for a happy and prosperous life.
December 9th, 2007 at 4:02 am
“If there is ever a time when your happiness suffers as you choose to maximize SEU, then choose happiness and be satisfied with slightly less SEU.
I thought your idea is very good. However, does it have to become a choice issue? I only ask because can you not just focus on being happy in the moment, and won’t that automatically force the reality to conform to you perception, and since the nature of humans is to maximize the SEU, it seems like that reality to be created would already have SEU maximized automatically through human creation of being happy in the moment.
There is this program I think you might be of interest, it helped me understand the intricate things in play that I had took for granted, yet showed me there are things that are automatic and need not waste precious energy trying to control it.
You can check it out here:
http://www.affiliatesden.com/sites/19424.htm