Comments on The Rational Entrepreneur: Your Work Habits and the Happiness Treadmill

Also, I suspect people don't disengage from wo...

2009-11-10T10:27:42.160-08:00

Also, I suspect people don't disengage from work to avoid stress. They may claim to, but most likely there is a deeper reason that they are rebelling against work. Similarly, someone who perennially gets extremely stressed out by work probably has deeper issues about why they are over-engaged.

The healthy medium is to work hard at the things within your power, but not to take the slings and arrows too personally. Yes, stress inevitably comes, as it does in all areas of life (for all creatures), but detaching completely is a pathological defense mechanism that only makes sense if your psyche is completely destroyed.

@Pierre-Louis overall the studies show that, for t...

2009-11-10T09:55:59.057-08:00

@Pierre-Louis overall the studies show that, for the average person, finding your work meaningful increases your level of happiness in the long-term, even if there is some increased stress associated with it. Unless you have reason to think you're an outlier in terms of getting distressed easily, you should engage. Presumably it would be better to be an outlier in the opposite direction, and find a way to be engaged without being distressed.

This sounds mostly correct, but what about the str...

2009-11-10T02:37:43.667-08:00

This sounds mostly correct, but what about the stress associated with being truly comitted to your work. Surely having a certain level of disengagement can limit the amount of stress, which would otherwise lead to unhappiness.