Why aren't smart people happier?
An essay with a catchy title caught my eye: Why aren't smart people happier? Source
The author proposes that the answer lies in how we define "smart". Usually "smart" means people that do well on standard tests of intelligence, or perform well in school. But most of these measures are looking only at narrow range of what we broadly think of as intelligence. The standard tests assess well-defined problems that have clear boundaries and quantifiable solutions.
Unfortunately many of life's most difficult problems are challenging because they are NOT well-defined. The problem of how to have a happy life is a good example. You may be great at solving well-defined problems and still struggle with messy, awkward, complex issues of actual living.
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