Confessions of a Former Political Junkie

My dad always says that the happiest people are those that stay in their hometown, work at the local factory, and hang out with cousins and old friends on nights and weekends (i.e. Richmond townies). Megan found an article that supports that theory.

The article also states too much happiness can cause lethargy and lack of interest in doing stuff, which supports my hypothesis from two days ago about artists feeding off of sadness.

…”once a moderate level of happiness is achieved, further increases can sometimes be detrimental to income, career success, education and political participation, Diener and colleagues write in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. On a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is extremely happy, 8s were more successful than 9s and 10s, getting more education and earning more. That probably reflects the fact that people who are somewhat discontent, but not so depressed as to be paralyzed, are more motivated to improve both their own lot (thus driving themselves to acquire more education and seek ever-more-challenging jobs) and the lot of their community (causing them to participate more in civic and political life). In contrast, people at the top of the jolliness charts feel no such urgency. “If you’re totally satisfied with your life and with how things are going in the world,” says Diener, “you don’t feel very motivated to work for change. Be wary when people tell you you should be happier.”

Further, the article bashes the commoditization of “happiness”, that is, the idea that happiness is something that can and should be achieved by every individual, be it through self-help books, marriage, medication, etc.

It’s always tricky to identify a turning point, at least in real time. Only in retrospect can you accurately pinpoint when a financial market peaked or hit bottom, for instance, or the moment when the craze for pricey coffee drinks crested. But look carefully, and what you are seeing now may be the end of the drive for ever-greater heights of happiness. Fed by hundreds of self-help books, including the current “The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want,” magazine articles and an industry of life coaches and motivational speakers, the happiness movement took off in the 1990s with two legitimate developments: discoveries about the brain activity underlying well-being, and the emergence of “positive psychology,” whose proponents urged fellow researchers to study happiness as seriously as they did pathological states such as depression. But when the science of happiness collided with pop culture and the marketplace, it morphed into something even its creators hardly recognized. There emerged “a crowd of people out there who want you to be happier,” write Ed Diener and his son, Robert Biswas-Diener, in their book, “Rethinking Happiness,” due for publication later this year. Somewhere out there a pharmaceutical company “is working on a new drug to make you happier,” they warn. “There are even people who would like to give you special ozone enemas to make you happier.” Although some 85 percent of Americans say they’re pretty happy, the happiness industry sends the insistent message that moderate levels of well-being aren’t enough: not only can we all be happier, but we practically have a duty to be so. What was once considered normal sadness is something to be smothered, even shunned.

This article was published on Tuesday 4 March 2008 at 8:20 am in the following categories: Thoughts . You can track this article via RSS 2.0. You may also leave a comment, , or a leave a trackback link.