From: Boston Globe
Should we stop pursuing happiness?
Boston Globe:
The “pursuit of happiness” has been something Americans have valued ever since the founding fathers inserted it into the Declaration of Independence. Yet some psychologists now question whether happiness is, indeed, a worthwhile goal, since new findings suggest the pursuit could actually make us more unhappy.
In a review paper published this week in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, researchers define what they call the “dark side of happiness”: feeling happy all the time can destroy relationships and careers, while avidly pursuing happiness is bound to lead to disappointment.
While some of us may envy those manic folks at the extreme end of the cheerful spectrum, they often have the same level of dysfunction as a person who’s too sad, some recent studies suggest. They may completely tune out sad events around them like, say, their spouse being laid off or a parent dying.
Read more: Boston Globe
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Comments
I read a respected Author and Spiritual man who wrote that the only thing wrong in the Declaration of Independence was “The Pursuit of Happyness”
I didn’t understand this shocking revealation for many years. When I finally understood what he wrote, I was enlightened to understand how that applied to my own life and the decisions that I would make.
I believe that the author had the right intention but choose the wrong words to express the true aspect of our lives that this phrase meant.
The phrase ” The Right to Pursue our own lives ” , or ” The Right to Pusue our Dreams ” may be closer to reality. Everyone pursues happiness and that in itself has contributed to many illegal and evil designs by men who selfishly believed that their ends justified their means. True happiness comes when we least expect it. One can say happiness can be looked for but never found, yet found when unlooked for. I can say after 50 years this is closer to reality than anything I’ve experienced. Most times happiness is found when one sacrifices his or her own self. Other times I have found happiness through service to others and it has also come to me in the most unusual or unexpected circumstances, hence the word serendipity. The true definition of the word coincidence has several meanings, one of which applies to this discussion. The last aspect of this is that happiness can most succinctly described as a State of Being or mind, that exists in good times and bad.
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