Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Happiness & Success

As found on MSN today:
A study suggests extreme happiness may be bad for you. Findings: 1) "The highest levels of income, education and political participation were reported not by the most satisfied individuals, but by moderately satisfied individuals." 2) Extremely happy people "earned significantly less money" and earned lower school grades than moderately happy people. 3) They "may not live as long," either. Theories: 1) Happiness makes you complacent and kills your drive. 2) It makes you slow to adapt. 3) It makes you too optimistic and insufficiently vigilant about your health. 4) It may overstimulate your cardiovascular system. Researchers' conclusions: 1) "Happiness may need to be moderated for success." 2) "Extremely high levels of happiness might not be a desirable goal." Human Nature's conclusions: 1) Success may need to be moderated for happiness. 2) Extremely high levels of success might not be a desirable goal.

I've been thinking about his a lot lately. Part of evaluating my life and what I put value in, what's really important.

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on this. Do you think it's true that you can't have success and happiness? Maybe it comes down to how you define success. And where is the balance?

1 comment:

  1. I think that is totally true. You have to sacrifice happiness if you want success.

    Of course, the question is: What is success? Maybe happiness IS success! In this study, success is probably defined as achievement in employment and money, money and more money.

    So, yes, the world is shaped so that if you value material achievement, you've got to turn your back on your humanity and yourself. You've got to leave that family behind! The economic machine has no room for happiness. It purposely keeps that out of reach for motivation.

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