Conveniently, happier people tend to achieve more, so you actually don’t need to sacrifice happiness to do more good. You might need to sacrifice certain kinds of happiness (e.g. buying expensive cars), but the research on positive psychology tends to show that that kind of thing doesn’t contribute much to happiness anyway.
That’s not to say that the choices which would lead to the happiest possible you are the exact same ones which would lead to achieving the most good, but there’s a lot of overlap, and anyone aiming to do massive amounts of good should not neglect their own happiness.
Conveniently, happier people tend to achieve more, so you actually don’t need to sacrifice happiness to do more good. You might need to sacrifice certain kinds of happiness (e.g. buying expensive cars), but the research on positive psychology tends to show that that kind of thing doesn’t contribute much to happiness anyway.
That’s not to say that the choices which would lead to the happiest possible you are the exact same ones which would lead to achieving the most good, but there’s a lot of overlap, and anyone aiming to do massive amounts of good should not neglect their own happiness.
Relevant LW posts on positive psychology:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/4su/how_to_be_happy/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/