"What is the Secret to Happiness?…

What "Every rabbi, philosopher, and grandmother has been telling us that for 2000 years"

The latest research from Harvard’s School of Psychology is on Happiness - by Daniel Gilbert, who has incidently just released a book: Stumbling on Happiness.

I read about it in today’s Boston Globe  (the quote in bold is directly from Daniel’s quote):

‘Stop working so hard to earn money, and spend more time with family and friends’. …We know that after a certaian level of income, more money doesn’t make more happiness. It’s also clear that one of the best predictors of happiness is the extent and goodness of social networks"

But we don’t want to hear what every rabbi, philosopher, and grandmother has been telling us that for 2000 years. What we want to hear is, ‘Assume the following position, cross your knees and hum, take this pill.’ We want a quick fix and we want something exotic. We want unhappiness to be cured like an infection, with a magic medicine. It is not going to happen."

There was more to read in the article* that I enjoyed, like people overestimating future possibilities of happiness, and underestimating present happiness. I do recommend the article or book, but apparently we’d all be better of spending the time with our friends and family!

And with that I am off to do exactly that - have a great weekend!

*It is called "Psychologists takes pleasure in studying happiness"  - if you want to read the full article you need to register (free) with the boston globe to get access…

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 at 7:49 pm and is filed under knowledge & wisdom, science, talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.