Purposelessness Makes People Unhappy

I had meant to write about this yesterday, but somehow got off track.

Rush was going on about the Washington Post piece that said that "too much happiness makes people unhappy."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/too-much-happiness-can-make-you-unhappy-studies-show/2012/04/02/gIQACELLrS_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop

First, read this quote from the article, then I'll discuss it:

The happier you are, the better, right? Not necessarily. Studies show that there is a darker side to feeling good and that the pursuit of happiness can sometimes make you . . . well, less happy. Too much cheerfulness can make you gullible, selfish, less successful — and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Happiness does have benefits (beyond feeling good, of course). It can protect us from stroke and from the common cold, makes us more resistant to pain and even prolongs our lives. Yet, June Gruber, a professor of psychology at Yale University who has studied happiness, warns that it’s important to experience positive moods in moderation.

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The happier you are, the better? Maybe not. Studies show that there is a darker side to feeling good.

.She compares happiness to food: Although necessary and beneficial, too much food can cause problems; likewise, happiness can lead to bad outcomes. “Research indicates that very high levels of positive feelings predict risk-taking behaviors, excess alcohol and drug consumption, binge eating, and may lead us to neglect threats,” she says.

How else can excessive joy, or having lots of positive emotions and a relative absence of negative ones, hurt you?

First, it may hamper your career prospects. Psychologist Edward Diener, renowned for his happiness research, and his colleagues analyzed a variety of studies, including data from more than 16,000 people around the world, and discovered that those who early in their lives reported the highest life satisfaction (for example, judging it at 5 on a 5-point scale) years later reported lower income than those who felt slightly less merry when young. What’s more, they dropped out of school earlier.

Included in the studies was one involving a group of American college freshmen who in 1976 claimed to be very cheerful. Surveyed again when they were in their late 30s, they earned, on average, almost $3,500 a year less than their slightly less cheerful peers. Why? Diener suggests that people who don’t experience much sadness or anxiety are rarely dissatisfied with their jobs and therefore feel less pressure to get more education or change careers.

Psychologists point out that emotions are adaptive: They make us change behavior to help us survive. Anger prepares us to fight; fear helps us flee. But what about sadness? Studies show that when we are sad, we think in a more systematic manner. Sad people are attentive to details and externally oriented, while happy people tend to make snap judgments that may reflect racial or sex stereotyping.

I read the complete article, and frankly it's bogus.

There are people who have a purpose in their lives, and there are people who don';t. People with a purpose are happy - regardless of how much money they're making. People without a purpose are the ones who descend into drug taking like cocaine, heroin, etc.

Why do wealthy people - like athletes - use drugs, gamble all their money away, etc. You'd think they'd be happy.

Well, it's because they don't have a purpose. They have all this money and they don't know what to do with it. Some of them - a very few some of them - start charitable foundations, but most of them just throw the money down the toilet. They see no use for it except gratifying any and all of their desires, and the fact that htey could stop wasting that money and put it to good use - helping their community, helping small towns put up monuments to heroes, financing movies, what have you - that never occurs to them.

There's a phrase that I've always liked; "The purpose driven life." I think that has been trademarked by a religious group, and I suppose the purpose in those lives is to live for the greater glory of god.

But for most of us, our "purpose-driven life" is to be the best that we can be. Choose a purpose and work towards achieving it. Once it's achieved, spread the wealth around - help other people achieve their goals, etc.

So instead of saying, "Too much happiness causes people to gamble, to drink, to stop taking risks", no - that's the wrong interpretation. [I guess it all depends on the definition of happiness. Someone who drinks to excess is definitely not a happy person...]