Perfectly Happy
Drake Bennett, Boston Globe, May 10, 2009

I am passionate about happiness. I find myself reading all I can on the subject. I think most people spent too much energy and resources trying to attain happiness in ways that are often counterproductive. Most people are terrible at relationships, take too few risks and work to stay within predefined social constructs to their detriment.

Science can help focus our energies on those things that are more likely to appreciably increase happiness. It seems a bit counterintuitive–especially to those of us who struggle financially–that winning the lottery doesn’t make people happy. The research also illuminates one reason long-term relationships often fail: the initial happiness surge of new love eventually wanes.

In recent years, cognitive scientists have turned in increasing numbers to the study of human happiness, and one of their central findings is that we are not very good at predicting how happy or unhappy something will make us. Given time, survivors of tragedies and traumas report themselves nearly as happy as they were before, and people who win the lottery or achieve lifelong dreams don’t see any long-term increase in happiness. By contrast, annoyances like noise or chronic pain bring down our happiness more than you’d think, and having friends or an extra hour of sleep every night can raise it dramatically.

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boston globe · happiness · lottery · poverty · research · Science · wealth