Here's a quick link to a New York Times story about happiness in America.
For the last three years, Gallup has called 1,000 randomly selected American adults each day and asked them about their emotional status, work satisfaction, eating habits, illnesses, stress levels and other indicators of their quality of life.When asked to correlate the data into a composite of the happiest possible citizen, here's what they came up with:
Gallup’s answer: he’s a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married, has children, lives in Hawaii, runs his own business and has a household income of more than $120,000 a year.The Times actually took it a step further and did the research to find a guy who meets all the criteria. Guess what? He's happy.
I've got a few changes to make, obviously.
--Straight Guy
8 comments:
Dear lord... I think just the salary and living in Hawaii would be all that it would take for me. The whole religion thing, kids and being 65 would be a downer for me but somehow it would be compensated by living in such a beautiful place.
I must be bucking the trend because I'm a 40 Y.O., partnered (not married by choice), childless but an uncle 3 times over, white, fallen Catholic and make less than what the NYT calls for. I also live in Boston - which could never be confused with Hawaii.
Despite all those differences - I'm very happy.
He's definitely doing something right! First would be the salary...then the rest is cake.
Huh. I might have to change my happiness standards from the little things in life to something a bit different.
Then again, eight hours of sleep, ice cream, and a hug make me one very happy college student.
Would it make you less happy to know you are the epitome of a statistical stereotype?
Drat, now I can't blame my unhappiness on my parents and their child rearing skills.
Wait --- I CAN definitely blame them for not being Asian-American. And for not being Jewish, though I suppose I could convert if I was so inclined. We don't have many tall people in our family, so that's on them, too.
My unhappiness IS their fault. I was right after all!
GG, I have the sockful of quarters and the accumulated vacation time to drive to your burg and knock some sense into you. I could tell your tongue was only 1/8 in your cheek as you wrote that.
I'm unconvinced salary begets happiness. While it is Hawaii, $120K buys a whole lot less - isn't that one of the places where gas and milk are both $5 a gallon? So, couldn't you live in Iowa, make $75K, and be just as happy (assuming you really really really like Iowa, have a phobia about islands and burn easily)?
No disrespect intended but I can't think of a single gay person I know (myself included) who could be happy in IA no matter how much money I made.
Straight in Upstate,
You are so unkind to me :(
GG
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