I'm writing this post because I want to have a succinct and shareable piece summarising my non-rigorous views on happiness.

During the past decade, I entered adulthood. With this transition came more choices, as my parents and teachers no longer constrained me. More choices came with more responsibility and choice paralysis. Should I stay here or move there? Should I focus on acquiring knowledge or furthering my social life? What actions will effectively improve my happiness?

The model I came up with is a four-legged table. Imagine that a flat tabletop represents your happiness. You want to maintain a flat tabletop. If the four legs are out of balance, the tabletop will become tilted, and so will you. The tabletop of happiness stands on these four pillars:

Health

Knowledge

Wealth

Relationships

This model is helpful because it's easy to get addicted to some pillars and neglect others. I know many people (including myself, at points in my life) who became obsessed with only one of the four cornerstones and neglected the rest. E.g. we all know the software engineer who is making piles of cash but whose relationships are falling apart, or the socialite who is struggling to pay rent because they're addicted to sacrificing themselves for those around them.

Let's now look at each of the four cornerstones and identify practical ways to improve them. There are several low hanging fruits under each pillar. However, as you advance beyond the low hanging fruits, the game becomes more challenging as returns diminish.

Health

There are cheap and straightforward habits that have an outsized benefit in the long run. It's worth adopting such habits as brushing and flossing daily, exercising daily, etc.
Conversely, some habits have outsized harm in the long run. For example, drunk driving, phone use while driving, consuming harmful substances, etc. Don't do these things.
Health is complex and complicated. You can easily get lost in a rabbit hole researching any health topic and ending up adopting extreme habits. The scientific consensus on various health topics seems good enough for me.

Knowledge

Recognize that truly learning new knowledge entails deliberate practice. You cannot master the violin by watching YouTube videos.
Given the raw materials for a vehicle, most permutations will correspond to a rock, and a tiny subset will correspond to a functioning vehicle. In a similar vein, most in

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Well-being

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