Monday 18 May 2009

What Makes Us Happy?

There's a very interesting article in the Atlantic about, what make us happy?
For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history.
The video below gives an overview with the psychologist involved, the conclusion he makes is endearing. Yet it's the article itself that's quite moving, as it quotes passages of the cases, the men's lives and reflections over 72 years. There's a blog the quotes remind me of called PostSecrets, people mail their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. There's something I've always found reassuring in reading people inner thoughts, as Alan Bennett says, it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.

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