When I try to visualise happy faces at random, the images my brain comes up with – Alan Titchmarsh, Jeremy Clarkson, Sarah Palin, Cliff Richard, or, worst of all, Nigel Farage – are unappealing as role models. But smart, creative people arent going to figure because they tend to suffer a disproportionate amount of unhappiness. Bruce Springsteen, who revealed last week that he was suicidal at the height of his success in the 1980s, is just one of the endless examples. One research finding after another has demonstrated that happy people have a less accurate view of reality than depressed people. All this leads me to an uncomfortable conclusion for happiness academics – being happy is not the most important thing in life. A re-statement of stoic principles is overdue. My fathers generation did not expect to be happy. It was the last thing on their minds. They simply wanted to muddle through, and if happiness came, then they considered themselves lucky. This attitude saved them the daily pain of disappointed hopes.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 23:14:02 +0000
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