>> The Futile pursuit of happiness. It’s not so much that we can’t be happy, as that “we overestimate the intensity and the duration of our emotional reactions — our ”affect” — to future events,” according to psychologists and economists studying happiness. Relatedly, many people seek wealth, kids, and a house in the ‘burbs despite the fact that those things just tend not to make people happy.
A large body of research on well-being seems to suggest that wealth above middle-class comfort makes little difference to our happiness, for example, or that having children does nothing to improve well-being — even as it drives marital satisfaction dramatically down. We often yearn for a roomy, isolated home (a thing we easily adapt to), when, in fact, it will probably compromise our happiness by distancing us from neighbors.
Earlier:
>> An eco-case for renting an apartment in the city
>> Should I have kids? Yes, if I wanna be less happy for 18 years straight.
>> The Happiness Trip — with a happiness formula!
>> Why so many suicides? “For the mysterious truth is that while suicide – surely some kind of rough index of human despair – has been increasing, the indices regarding most other measures of human welfare have been steadily improving.” (via ideas) Earlier: What happens to a suicide deferred?
Update, 5/13/09: An Anti-capitalist video guide to happiness
Thanks for the link to the article about happiness. I agree with much of what was said – I’ve found that negative experiences have not been nearly as bad as I imagined they would be and overall much easier to get over.
Comment by Kim Woodbridge — March 3, 2009 @ 11:55 am
“We can have peace if we let go of wanting to change the past and wanting to control the future.” —Lester Levinson
I recommend Lester’s : The Sedona Method
Comment by yoga DVD dude — March 5, 2009 @ 7:22 am