Happiness Research

[Alberto]

Re: Happiness Research

A couple of soundbites from "Ending the pursuit of happiness" by Barry Magid (fresh out of the press and, IMHO, a landmark piece in the assimilation process of Zen in the West):

"Zazen is not a technique. It is not a means to an end. It's not a way to become calmer, more confident, or even "enlightened". Indeed, our whole practice can be said to be about putting an end to self-improvement, an end to our usual pursuit of happiness -or its Zen equivalent, the pursuit of enlightenment. Not that we can't be happy (or enlightened), it's just that we'll get there by a very different route than we once imagined -and it may not look like what we expected when we started out" (bold letters by yours truly)

"With a Zen of "no gain", we step outside of our usual realm of questions and answers, problems and solutions, off the endless treadmill of self-improvement and instead experience the completeness of our life as it already is" (Another way to put what Shui Di just said)

"The perfection that we are so busy pursuing is to be found nowhere but right here in this very moment, regardless of its content. This is the most basic spiritual insight that we can have. " (italics are the author's this time)

Gassho, Alberto

[chicanobudista]

Re: Happiness Research

What is material happiness? How does it lead to The Story of Stuff.

[Ryumon]

Re: Happiness Research

I have to say, I've seen that video, and, while parts of it are valid, she stretches statistics in ways that go too far. In particular, at one point she says that 90% of all stuff is not used after a month. That's simply ludicrous, unless she includes food and water...

Kirk

[chicanobudista]

Re: Happiness Research

In particular, at one point she says that 90% of all stuff is not used after a month. That's simply ludicrous, unless she includes food and water...

Are you referring to this section? :?:

We have become a nation of consumers. Our primary identity has become that of consumer, not mothers,
teachers, farmers, but consumers. The primary way that our value is measured and demonstrated
is by how much we contribute to this arrow, how much we consume. And do we!
We shop and shop and shop. Keep the materials flowing.

And flow they do!

Guess what percentage of total material flow through this system is still in product or use 6 months
after their sale in North America. Fifty percent? Twenty? NO. One percent.44 One! In other words, 99
percent of the stuff we harvest, mine, process, transport—99 percent of the stuff we run through this
system is trashed within 6 months. Now how can we run a planet with that rate of materials throughput?

Here is the explanation according to the doc:

Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism, (1999) p. 81.
Note: Since so many viewers have asked about this fact, I’ll include
the whole paragraph from Natural Capitalism to provide more
explanation: “In short, the whole concept of industry’s dependence
on ever faster once-through flow of materials from depletion to
pollution is turning from a hallmark of progress into a nagging
signal of uncompetitiveness. It’s dismaying enough that compared
with their theoretical potential, even the most energy-efficient
countries are only a few percent energy-efficient. It’s even worse
that only one percent of the total North American materials flow
ends up in , and is still being used within, products six months after
their sale. That roughly one percent materials efficiency is looking
more and more like a vast business opportunity. But this opportunity
extends far beyond just recycling bottles and paper, for it
involves nothing less than the fundamental redesign of industrial
production and the myriad uses for its products. The next business
frontier is rethinking everything we consume; what is does, where
it comes from, where it goes, and how we can keep on getting its
service from a net flow of very nearly nothing at all – but ideas.”
emphasis added by Annie.)

Annie adds: This statement is not saying that 99 percent of the
stuff we buy is trashed. Think beyond your household to the
upstream waste created in the extraction, production, packaging,
transportation and selling of all the stuff you bought. For example,
the No Dirty Gold campaign explains that there is 79 tons of mining
waste for every one ton of gold produced; that translates into
about 20 tons of mine waste created to make one gold wedding ring.

[Jundo]

Re: Happiness Research

Another article related to this. Good news for the old fuddy-duddies like me. I especially like this observation:


A certain amount of distress in old age is inevitable, including aches, pains and deaths of loved ones and friends. But older people generally have learned to be more content with what they have than younger adults, Yang said.

This is partly because older people have learned to lower their expectations and accept their achievements, said Duke University aging expert Linda George. An older person may realize "it's fine that I was a schoolteacher and not a Nobel prize winner."

...

"Contentment as far as I'm concerned comes with old age ... because you accept things the way they are," she said. "You know that nothing is perfect."

Who's happier -- older or younger?

* Story Highlights
* Survey finds older people tend to be happier than younger folks
* Odds of being happy rise five percent for every ten years of age
* Expert: Older people more content because of lowered expectations
* Research: Baby boomers are the least happy

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Newsflash for rock stars and teenagers: It turns out everything doesn't go downhill as we age -- the golden years really are golden.

That's according to eye-opening research that found the happiest Americans are the oldest, and older adults are more socially active than the stereotype of the lonely senior suggests.

The two go hand-in-hand -- being social can help keep away the blues.

"The good news is that with age comes happiness," said study author Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist. "Life gets better in one's perception as one ages."

A certain amount of distress in old age is inevitable, including aches, pains and deaths of loved ones and friends. But older people generally have learned to be more content with what they have than younger adults, Yang said.

This is partly because older people have learned to lower their expectations and accept their achievements, said Duke University aging expert Linda George. An older person may realize "it's fine that I was a schoolteacher and not a Nobel prize winner."

George, who was not involved in the new study, believes the research is important because the general public continues to think that "late life is far from the best stage of life and they don't look forward to it."

Yang's findings are based on periodic face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of Americans from 1972 to 2004. About 28,000 people aged 18 to 88 took part.

There were ups and downs in overall happiness levels during the study, generally corresponding with good and bad economic times. But at every stage, older Americans were the happiest.

While younger blacks and poor people tended to be less happy than whites and wealthier people, those differences faded as people aged.

In general, the odds of being happy increased 5 percent with every 10 years of age.

Overall, about 33 percent of Americans reported being very happy at age 88, versus about 24 percent of those age 18 to their early 20s. And throughout the study years, most Americans reported being very happy or pretty happy; less than 20 percent said they were not too happy.

A separate University of Chicago study found that about 75 percent of people aged 57 to 85 engage in one or more social activities at least every week. Those include socializing with neighbors, attending religious services, volunteering or going to group meetings.

Those in their 80s were twice as likely as those in their 50s to do at least one of these activities.

Both studies appear in April's American Sociological Review.

"People's social circles do tend to shrink a little as they age -- that is mainly where that stereotype comes from, but that image of the isolated elderly really falls apart when we broaden our definition of what social connection is," said study co-author Benjamin Cornwell, also a University of Chicago researcher.

The research rings true for 81-year-old George O'Hare, a retired Sears manager in Willowbrook, Illinois. He's active with church, AARP and does motivational speaking, too. His wife is still living, and he's close to his three sons and four grandchildren.

"I'm very happy because I've made friends that are still living," O'Hare said. "I like to go out and speak in schools about motivation."

"Happiness is getting out and being with people, and that's why I recommend it," he said.

Ilse Siegler, an 84-year-old retired nurse manager in Chicago, has a slightly different perspective. Her husband died 35 years ago; she still misses him everyday.

She has vision problems and has slowed down with age. Yet, she still swims, runs a social group in her condo building, volunteers in a retirement home and is active with her temple. These all help "make life more enjoyable," she said.

While Siegler said these aren't the happiest years of her life, she's content.

"Contentment as far as I'm concerned comes with old age ... because you accept things the way they are," she said. "You know that nothing is perfect."

Cornwell's nationally representative study was based on in-home interviews with 3,005 people in 2005-06. While it didn't include nursing home residents, only about 4 percent of Americans aged 75 to 84 are in nursing homes, Cornwell said.

It's all good news for the aging population. However, Yang's study also found that baby boomers were the least happy. They could end up living the unfortunate old-age stereotype if they can't let go of their achievement-driven mind-set, said George, the Duke aging expert.

So far, baby boomers aren't lowering their aspirations at the same rate earlier generations did. "They still seem to believe that they should have it all," George said. "They're still thinking about having a retirement that's going to let them do everything they haven't done yet."

Previous research also has shown that mid-life tends to be the most stressful time, said Cornell University sociologist Elaine Wethington. "Everyone's asking you to do things and you have a lot to do. You're less happy because you feel hassled."

The new studies show "if you can make it through that," there's light at the end of the tunnel, Wethington said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Ryumon]

Re: Happiness Research

I also think that, as we age, we live more ups and downs, and are therefore more likely to accept them than when we were younger.

Kirk

[CinnamonGal]

Re: Happiness Research

Sonja Lybomirsky at California University is researching with these questions in mind:

1) What makes people happy?; 2) Is happiness a good thing?; and 3) How can we make people happier still?

The researchers explain the finding that money doesn't bring happeness by hedonic adjustment: people tend to quickly get used to the good stuff. The data from the US shows that the level of experienced happiness in the US stays on the same level since the mid 1900s, despite the increase in the standard of living.

According to this research it is not successful career and social life that lead to happiness but the other way around.

The studies of the twins helped the researchers to better understand how our experiences well-being depends on the genes: the genes determine our personlaity which in turn matters for the level of happiness of an individual (Timothy Bates' in Edinburgh publised a study on that last month). As a result of the numerous interviews (1 000 twin sets) they could see that those born more sociable, active and hardworking (!!!) had a larger chance to feel (beeome) happy.

From Sonja's site:

"On-going studies in my laboratory are exploring additional cognitive and motivational processes that support the differing worlds of enduring happiness versus chronic unhappiness. For example, several investigations have revealed that unhappy individuals are more likely than happy ones to dwell on negative or ambiguous events. Such "dwelling" or rumination may drain cognitive resources and thus bring to bear a variety of negative consequences, which could further reinforce unhappiness. These findings demonstrate some of the maladaptive by-products of self-reflection, suggesting that not only is the "unexamined life" worth living, but it is potentially full of happiness and joy."

I never really thought about the benefits of feeling happy and connecting it to how one perceives life.

Another interesting bit:

"To cast our work on happiness in a broader framework, we have also been exploring the meaning and expression of happiness and suffering across cultures and subcultures. For example, current research is investigating the value and reasonableness of the pursuit of happiness in "meritocratic" vs. "non-meritocratic" cultures (e.g., U.S. and Russia, respectively). Our preliminary findings suggest that Russians are less concerned with the pursuit of happiness, less likely to deem happiness as attainable or stable, and less likely to publicly express happiness than their American counterparts."

Sonja's site: http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~sonja/.

Gassho,

Irina

[CinnamonGal]

Re: Happiness Research

A little addition

A pie diagram in the article I read about these studies showed that (according to the studies) happeness depended 50% on genes (!), 40% on one's own behaviour and choices and 10 % on personal circumstances. (Sonja Lyubomirsky's studies were conducted in the US, the country with high living standard and political stability). Basically, one has to work harder on being happy if the genes let you down :shock:

Gassho,

Irina