I find that many things in life that make us happy. Aside from the stereotypical responses of getting a great job, answering only to yourself, commanding respect, yada yada yada, other simpler things include giving up a seat on the train for the elderly, de-cluttering our desks, buying a new coat, beating Guitar Hero on expert for the first time, watching Gossip Girl, etc. etc. would also do the trick.

But all those things are temporary - we eventually got used to that new job and higher paycheck, and what was once rewarding and challenging slowly becomes the mundane. And once again, we are off again in search of out next jolt. Finding a sustainable source of happiness, therefore, is much harder.

"So, what has science learned about what makes the human heart sing? More than one might imagine--along with some surprising things about what doesn't ring our inner chimes. Take wealth, for instance, and all the delightful things that money can buy. Research by Diener, among others, has shown that once your basic needs are met, additional income does little to raise your sense of satisfaction with life (see story on page A32). A good education? Sorry, Mom and Dad, neither education nor, for that matter, a high IQ paves the road to happiness. Youth? No, again. In fact, older people are more consistently satisfied with their lives than the young. And they're less prone to dark moods: a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that people ages 20 to 24 are sad for an average of 3.4 days a month, as opposed to just 2.3 days for people ages 65 to 74. Marriage? A complicated picture: married people are generally happier than singles, but that may be because they were happier to begin with (see page A37). Sunny days? Nope, although a 1998 study showed that Midwesterners think folks living in balmy California are happier and that Californians incorrectly believe this about themselves too.

 

On the positive side, religious faith seems to genuinely lift the spirit, though it's tough to tell whether it's the God part or the community aspect that does the heavy lifting. Friends? A giant yes. A 2002 study conducted at the University of Illinois by Diener and Seligman found that the most salient characteristics shared by the 10% of students with the highest levels of happiness and the fewest signs of depression were their strong ties to friends and family and commitment to spending time with them. "Word needs to be spread," concludes Diener. "It is important to work on social skills, close interpersonal ties and social support in order to be happy."

I was venting about how my life is in shambles one afternoon when my friend, Teddy had one of his rare moments of brilliance and said something that struck me.

He essentially put my life in perspective for me: Many of the things we stress over are hardly significant in the long run – a typo on our resume, an argument with our parents, forgetting a friend’s birthday, etc., etc.  When we take a step back and look at life from the greater scheme of things, we’d come to realize that these problems are only a blimp.  For example, if we lived to be 75 years old, a couple of days stressing over an argument with our parents (let’s say 3 days?) occupy approximately 0.011% of our lives – merely a blimp.  We still have 99.9890% of our lives to make the best of.

That is not to say that these problems are not important  – it’s just that they may not be as important relative to whatever else is going on in our lives that we should waste so much time and energy stressing over it.