你这么聪明，为什么不快乐？If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?
Naval： "幸福是给蠢人准备的。"这是我常从聪明的成功人士那里听到的抱怨。他们认为只有愚笨或懒惰的人才能幸福。创业者会说："我不想幸福，因为我想成功。"他们担心自己要是太幸福了，就会失去欲望，不再努力工作。
你能否在不失去动力的情况下提升幸福感？
和其他事情一样，这种说法也有一定道理。一般来说，你越聪明，就越能看穿日常生活轻松或安全的表象。你能看到所有的风险和弊端——等待我们的种种灾难。你能看到许多被描绘成对你或对社会有益的事物背后的犬儒与操纵。你变得愤世嫉俗，并借由愤世嫉俗来彰显自己的聪明。非常聪明的人常常只用纯粹的冷眼观察来交流。
不想幸福也没关系。但我们要探讨的是：你能否在不显著降低动力或才智的情况下提升幸福感。
我们先来看第一种反对意见："我不幸福是因为我太聪明了。"这有一部分是事实。你不幸福，部分是因为你知道得太多、理解得太多，接触的东西太多。但这并不意味着你不能既幸福又保有才智。
弄清真相会通向幸福
但别搞反了：你不是因为不幸福才聪明，而是因为聪明才不幸福。你可以既幸福又聪明——只是需要付出更多努力。好消息是，聪明人擅长弄清真相。你越是深入挖掘某些深刻的真相，就会变得越自由、越平静。这种平静会通向幸福。
如果你这么聪明，为什么不幸福呢？我完全相信这是真的。在我们这个社会里，拥有高智力的美妙之处在于，你可以用它换来几乎任何东西。如果你够聪明，你就能想出如何在基因的限制下保持健康，如何在环境的限制下变得富有。
如果你够聪明，你就能想出如何在生物性的限制内获得幸福。但你的生物性限制比你想象的要大得多。
幸福的动态区间相当大
如果你曾喝醉过，或通过迷幻药物、冥想、呼吸练习或其他催眠技巧进入过改变的意识状态，那么你便体验过超越平日感受的短暂幸福时刻。
当然，其中一部分是虚假的、由快感驱动的幸福。但其中确有真实成分；否则你不会渴望那种状态。
获得这些短暂的幸福状态，能让你看到自己的区间有多么灵动——而且这个区间可能相当大。
你怎样才能持续地把自己推向那个方向，而不是靠把心智震到臣服和寂静的方式来偶尔造访它？
Naval: “Happiness is for stupid people.” That’s a common complaint I hear from smart overachievers. They think only dumb or lazy people can be happy. Entrepreneurs will say, “I don’t want to be happy because I want to be successful.” They worry that if they get too happy they’ll lose their desire and won’t work hard anymore.
Can you increase happiness without losing your drive?
Like everything else, there is some truth to this. Generally, the more intelligent you are, the more you can see behind the façade of everyday life being easy or safe. You see all the risks and downsides—the calamities that await us. You see the cynicism and manipulation behind so many things portrayed as being good for you or society. You become cynical, and you signal your intelligence through cynicism. Very smart people often communicate in purely cynical observations.
It’s OK to not want to be happy. But we’re going to explore whether you can increase your happiness without significantly lowering your drive or intellect.
Let’s take the first objection: “I’m not happy because I’m smart.” This is partially true. You are unhappy partially because you know and understand too much. You’ve been exposed to too much. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t be happy and retain your intelligence.
Figuring out the truth will lead to happiness
But don’t get it backwards: You’re not smart because you’re unhappy; you’re unhappy because you’re smart. You can be happy and smart—it’s just going to take more work. The good news is, smart people are good at figuring out the truth. The more you dig into certain deep truths, the freer and more peaceful you will become. That peace will lead to happiness.
If you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy? I absolutely believe that is true. The beauty of being mentally high functioning in our society is that you can trade it for almost anything. If you’re smart, you can figure out how to be healthy within your genetic constraints and how to be wealthy within your environmental constraints.
If you’re smart, you can figure out how to be happy within your biological constraints. But your biological constraints are a lot larger than you might think.
The dynamic range of happiness is quite large
If you’ve ever gotten drunk or achieved an altered state of mind on psychedelic drugs or through meditation, breathing or other hypnotic techniques, you have experienced brief moments of happiness beyond what you feel on a typical day.
Of course, some of this is a fake, pleasure-driven happiness. But there’s truth to it; otherwise, you wouldn’t desire that state.
Achieving these brief states of happiness can show you how dynamic your range is—and that range can be quite large.
How do you nudge yourself in that direction on a perpetual basis, as opposed to visiting it by stunning your mind into submission and silence?