The Science Of Happiness

Hogwash McFly writes "There's an interesting article over at The Times that attempts to answer the question 'So what do you have to do to find happiness?' by exploring the biology and psychology behind this highly sought-after emotion. This article opens up new insight into the common perceptions of what makes us happy, such as having more friends and more money. Detailed in the article is the idea that our early ancestors' struggles against adverse weather and predators have led us to instinctually focus on what is wrong or out of place in order to react with more efficiency, then going onto autopilot when things are going well."

Comments

Happiness is individualised perception

[drijen]

For many of my co-workers here in the bible belt, hapiness is letting their worries be "god's" worries. IF thats so for most religious people, i would cynically say that hapiness is letting someone else have repsonsibilty. The article seems to concretrate heavily on the religous "values".

I look it a different way:

When i die, i want to fly, sliding on my side at 100 MPH into the pearly gates, wearing a huge smile smile, yelling "WOW! What a ride!".

I hate for my life to be dull and unispiring - that for me is happiness.

I wonder if they did a case study on Adrenaline junkies, priests, and people like Linus Torvalds. Only then could i trust the science of happiness :(

Re:Happiness versus Contentment

[beesquee]

National Geographic had an article about measuring happiness in cultures using MRI's. They found out of all the people scanned Tibetan monks were by far the happiest people in the world despite living in subpoverty conditions. Make you think those buddhist's are onto something.