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What makes us happy?

According to psychologist Professor Ed Diener there is no one key to happiness but a set of ingredients that are vital.

First, family and friends are crucial - the wider and deeper the relationships with those around you the better. Family based India.  

It is even suggested that friendship can ward off germs. Our brains control many of the mechanisms in our bodies which are responsible for disease.

Just as stress can trigger ill health, it is thought that friendship and happiness can have a protective effect.

According to happiness research, friendship has a much bigger effect on average on happiness than a typical person's income itself.

One economist, Professor Oswald at Warwick University, has a formula to work out how much extra cash we would need to make up for not having friends.

The answer is £50,000.

Marriage also seems to be very important. According to research the effect of marriage adds an average seven years to the life of a man and something like four for a woman. Family based India.

The second vital ingredient is having meaning in life, a belief in something bigger than yourself - from religion, spirituality or a philosophy of life.  Philosophical Hinduism.

The third element is having goals embedded in your long term values that you're working for, but also that you find enjoyable. Rising GDP. An observed effect since 1600 by Adam Smith (see Wealth of Nation)  Smith also predicted a high suicide rate when GDP stop rising, like Hong Kong in last few year.

Psychologists argue that we need to find fulfilment through having goals that are interesting to work on and which use our strengths and abilities.

[ 本帖最後由 dye 於 2007-3-27 16:40 編輯 ]

dye

The law of diminishing util

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility

The “law” of diminishing marginal utility is said to explain the “paradox of water and diamonds”, most commonly associated with Adam Smith[7] (though recognized by earlier thinkers).[8] Human beings cannot even survive without water, whereas diamonds were in Smith's day mere ornamentation. Yet water had a very small price, and diamonds a very large price, by any normal measure. Marginalists explained that it is the marginal usefulness of any given quantity that matters, rather than the usefulness of a class or of a totality. For most people, water was sufficiently abundant that the loss or gain of a gallon would withdraw or add only some very minor use if any; whereas diamonds were in much more restricted supply, so that the lost or gained use were much greater.

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“paradox of Hong Kong luxury and India's apple”,

" For most HKer,  luxury was sufficiently abundant that the loss or gain of a gallon would withdraw or add only some very minor use if any; whereas India's apple to Indian were in much more restricted supply, so that the lost or gained use were much greater."

[ 本帖最後由 dye 於 2007-3-27 17:50 編輯 ]