Happiness Project: Scott H. Young of Get More Out of Life

Scott H. Young started his personal development site at a very early age. His objective was to answer the question ‘how does someone get more out of life?’

During his time in high school, he was a productivity monster, and finished 2nd in his class. All while building up habits of excellence, such as waking up early every day, abstaining from T.V., exercising regularly and adopting a vegetarian diet. His extracurriculars activities included writing articles daily, coaching soccer, lifeguarding, and attending Toastmaster meetings.

After moving to University he decided to take a more relaxed stance towards productivity, and began exploring interpersonal excellent, including relationships, socializing, networking and communication.

He authored a successful ebook How to Change a Habit, and continues to provide great content on his personal site www.scotthyoung.com/blog. Some of his most popular posts include a Habitual Mastery series, Double Your Reading Rate, and How to Ace Your Finals Without Studying.

So how does someone who is so productive and on-point so early in life view happiness?

1. How do you define happiness?

Best definition I heard of happiness was from Ayn Rand. She claimed that happiness was a measure of how you were living your life, happiness being the barometer measuring your success. Focusing relentlessly on “being happy” is often missing the point. That is, happiness is caused by something. It’s caused by having a motive force that drives your life and all the actions you do. Emphasizing the happiness without the cause is a bit like emphasizing the money without how it was earned.

2. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your happiness now, versus when you were a child?

I’m much happier today than I have been in my past. Surprisingly, I think the reason for that change in happiness has less to do with external problems and situations, but the steady improvements in myself and my philosophy towards life.

3. What do you do on a daily basis that brings you happiness? (and how consistent is the feeling of happiness throughout your day)

I don’t like to look at happiness on a daily level. There are many activities I do that I enjoy. Working on projects and building something meaningful would rank near the top of that list. But clumping up everything together under the broad category of happiness seems a bit artificial. I prefer to split happiness into two categories, your overall rating of the quality of your life and the amount of experiences you enjoy.

4. What things take away from your happiness? What can be done to lessen their impact or remove them from your life?

I don’t think avoiding the unpleasant and unhappy times is the key to happiness. I’m paraphrasing here but, the absence of pain is not happiness, the absence of death is not life. I think the ideal way to live would be to have a philosophy that let’s you fully enjoy the happiest moments in life and persist through the hardest moments.
Risking a few harder or more painful moments for overall quality of life is part of growth.

5. What do you plan on doing in the future that will bring you even more happiness?

I must be the worst interviewee ever, because I keep dodging your questions, Alex. But once again I don’t like how this question is phrased. “Plan on doing in the future” implies that I think there is some point of accomplishment that will push me towards better happiness.

Right now I’m working on projects I love, improving myself and helping other people, what more could I want? Materially I hope my life improves and I hope I get the chances for even bigger and greater experiences, but my happiness is today, not tomorrow.

____

To get more info about what the Happiness Project is and isn’t, please visit the Introduction Post. To see a running list of all participants, which I will be updating as things happen, please visit the Happiness Project Page.