And yet the initial comment that kicked off this article had a strong thesis: You can leverage intelligence to increase the likelihood of happiness.

I’ve used reasoning and long-term planning to crawl myself out of two crippling and life-threatening mental illnesses.

A huge part of the process is a commitment to the regular stimulation of therapeutic neural activity. As a neuroscientist I developed what has proven to be an accurate enough understanding for what increases the likelihood of positive emotions. This knowledge now allows me to create happiness in my life and in the lives of those close to me. Damn straight I make mistakes, but I’d be far worse off and far less happy if I didn’t try. I’d be dead.

Simply put: I work my ass off to make my life easy.

Wrap you head around that, and be better off for it.