Getting Happy

Studies show...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200906/happiness

This particular article from The Atlantic Online exposes several aspects of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant. It took two days to read and probably will require a week to digest. Next up are the references gleaned.

One personal quest is finding the NPR program snippet, probably in a memorial report following the death of Vaillant that gave the pronounciation and proper accent for this:

"Vaillant brings a healthy dose of subtlety to a field that sometimes seems to glide past it. The bookstore shelves are lined with titles that have an almost messianic tone, as in Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment. But what does it mean, really, to be happier? For 30 years, Denmark has topped international happiness surveys. But Danes are hardly a sanguine bunch. Ask an American how it’s going, and you will usually hear “Really good.” Ask a Dane, and you will hear “Det kunne være værre (It could be worse).” “Danes have consistently low (and indubitably realistic) expectations for the year to come,” a team of Danish scholars concluded. “Year after year they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark.”"

Another list item was "The Natural History of Alcoholism". A quick search and a visit to Wikipedia put that one to rest for awhile. Worthwhile reads all over the place.