Saturday, February 18, 2006

Are We Happy Yet?

The Business of Life linked to this fantastic study on happiness. It looks like in the U.S., your best chance to be very happy is to be married, religious, Republican, rich, white, and living somewhere warm. The analysis of the study results is breezy and fun, with lots of interesting observations:
"Keep in mind, however, that even taking into account all these factors, we don't actually improve by very much our ability to predict which specific individual is likely to be very happy. If we knew who'd been fired last week, or who's a glass-is-always-half-full kind of person, we'd probably do a lot better."
Shamash was also thinking happy thoughts this week:
"Though I can appreciate his sort of "ethical happiness", I simply love those few times during the week where I just have to smile at how big and beautiful this world is. What lovely creatures walk this earth, and how honored I am to have been able to meet and learn to know a few of them."

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