Life starts out all right, and gets better, but eventually your life gets to be about as good as it is going to get. Then it gets worse, and/or you die. So when should you admit to yourself that life now is about as good as it is going to get – best make the most of it?
Some ambitious people I know seem to disapprove of ever guessing that this is about as good as your life will get. They dream of a Nobel prize, and warn of sad people who seem to have given up on life. But it also seems sad to live your life focused a better future, and neglect just enjoying the best part of your life when it comes.
I’ll say that my life now is most likely about as good as it is going to get. Not as fabulous as I might have hoped perhaps, but definitely worth living.
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Why is it that one can only enjoy one’s life at that point
that one no longer expects, or hopes, that one’s life might
get better in some sense or other?
Anyway, there is not a single metric on “life.” Our hearing steadily worsens from birth to death, downhill all the way. OTOH, until we
get Alzheimer’s or some other old age dementia, presumably the
accumulation of knowledge and experience offers the possibility
of increasing wisdom and philosophical perspective as we age.
Life changes. Some things get better, some things get worse.
Robin’s comments usually are used when talking about someone’s career.
Most careers start at the bottom, then progress up the ladder till you reach as high as you’re going to get. In the old days you could then settle down and wait for your pension, but in today’s dog eat dog environment, you will probably be ‘let go’. That saves the company having to pay you a pension.
So today, the gradual wind down is more likely to be a sudden shock into unemployment or starting a new career.
Which could be better. Who can tell? Life is what you make of it.
heh.. Robin, You are welcome to borrow my photo from
this page, should you ever need an image to go with this post.
As David Schmidtz once put it:
Imagine if Newton were not only the greatest physicist of the seventeenth century, but also the greatest physicist who would ever live. Or even worse, imagine that Ricardo had been the most knowledgeable economist who ever lived – no one was ever allowed to claim they knew more than Ricardo. Wouldn’t that be sad? It’s painful to have no prospect of ever doing better.
Just because something is painful doesn’t mean it isn’t true. You can’t let such a consideration influence your factual beliefs. But it is right and proper for the prospect of sadness to shape our actions. Insofar as you have a choice, a way to influence reality, you should choose a world where you can keep heading upward – where the future holds something beyond a grave. You could sign up for cryonics. You could support the Methuselah Foundation. You could support the Singularity Institute. Don’t “believe in” hope – you might as well buy lottery tickets – but if you can create hope, create it.
Because wouldn’t it be saddest of all if you could have done better, but didn’t?
Are you assuming that the “good” life is defined solely by accomplishments (Nobel prizes) and/or external success/recognition?
Matthew, I have in mind whatever each person considers “good” for their life.
Eliezer, do have some hope, if there is some prospect of improvement. But life can be good, even when it is unlikely to get better.
Pablo, nice quote.
Amara, I did; thanks.
Bill and Barkley, yes there are many dimensions, but we should also acknowledge an overall summary quality of life, which can go up or down.
You have to define your ‘good’ in ‘as good as it gets’.
For example, surveys show that old folk are happier than young folk.
That’s pretty much a ‘good’ for me.
“Overall, people got it wrong, believing that most people become less happy as they age, when in fact this study and others have shown that people tend to become happier over time,” says lead author Heather Lacey,., a postdoctoral fellow and member of the U-M Medical School’s Centre for Behavioural and Decision Sciences in Medicine. “Not only do younger people believe that older people are less happy, but older people believe they and others must have been happier ‘back then’. Neither belief is accurate.”
“People often believe that happiness is a matter of circumstance, that if something good happens, they will experience long-lasting happiness, or if something bad happens, they will experience long-term misery,” he says. “But instead, people’s happiness results more from their underlying emotional resources – resources that appear to grow with age. People get better at managing life’s ups and downs, and the result is that as they age, they become happier – even though their objective circumstances, such as their health, decline.”
Lacey adds, “It’s not that people overestimate their happiness, but rather that they learn how to value life from adversities like being sick. What the sick learn from being sick, the rest of us come to over time.”
BillK
Robin:
I’ll say that my life now is most likely about as good as it is going to get. Not as fabulous as I might have hoped perhaps, but definitely worth living.
I think I understand your point. At times, I remember wanting so much more than what I am today. Today, i’m content with who I am. I wonder how many people get the opportunity to feel that way?
Anna
When I was young I once thought to myself that the year before I had been unbelievably stupid. The next year I remembered how the previous year I had that thought, but I was still (by the standards of my current self) incredibly dumb. I figured I would always feel that way about my younger self (although perhaps now I am reaching a plateau where I won’t become much brighter) and it upset me because I didn’t want to always be stupid but unaware of it until afterward. I was also angry at my younger self for being too dumb to appreciate how good I had it. I think that indicates I would not be a good parent, because the love a parent has for their child is supposed to be unconditional of how grateful the kid is and I’d be likely to get irritated by the average kid.
TGGP:
although perhaps now I am reaching a plateau where I won’t become much brighter
What does “Good as it gets” have to do with “I won’t become much brighter”?
Anna:)
Oh dear, people are talking about “happiness.” What a swamp.
At a minimum one should maintain the distinction between
“happiness” and “satisfaction.” Thus, careful studies suggest
that one’s current economic status has little to nothing to do
with one’s moment-to-moment happiness, but a great deal to do
with one’s satisfaction, especially one’s relative economic and
social status.
Responding to Eliezer’s comment, I would argue that belief creates hope, even if that belief is self-deluding.
See my post here for more:
http://hereticatthegates.blogspot.com/2007/04/superstition-economy-or-how-self.html