OT -- Nobel-Winning Psychologist Found the Secret to Happiness

It sounds like “Minimizing the Skim” and LBYM (Living Below Your Means)

free link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/opinion/decision-making-herbert-simon.html?unlocked_article_code=1.iVA.BzRc.mABtp_g8jWEH&smid=url-share

{{ When Simon faced a decision, he considered a few alternatives, sometimes asked for advice, chose and moved on. He didn’t agonize, and he didn’t second-guess. “The best is enemy of the good” was the mantra he lived by.

Simon was, as he put it, an “incorrigible satisficer.” His eldest daughter, Katherine, recalled that he wore one brand of socks to avoid selecting color or style each morning, and owned exactly one black beret at a time, made at a particular haberdashery in Europe.

According to Katherine, he said that one needed only three sets of clothes: “one on one’s body, one in the wash and one in the closet ready to wear.” He always ate the same breakfast — oatmeal, half a grapefruit, black coffee — and lived in the same house for 46 years.

“My father simplified his life in terms of his daily habits,” Katherine wrote, “thus eliminating the need to make little decisions about everything.” By taking the small decisions off his plate, that simplification freed his attention for the people and work that actually mattered to him. }}

intercst

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That reminds me of a family story that goes back over 200 years in Estonia. My 3rd great grandfather, Jürri born in 1796, was said to be the strongest man in the county. His meals consisted mainly of oatmeal porridge and bacon in the morning, noon and night. Thus he was called Porridge Jürri. One day he got really mad at something - so he picked up his horse drawn wagon and threw the wagon on the roof of his house.

Jaak

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Years ago, an ad on the radio stuck in my mind.

“Because you’re worth it…up to a point.”

I don’t remember which product it was but I do remember it during my LBYM purchase decisions.

Wendy

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