From the Editors January 16, 2012 Issue

How's life treating you?

The Editors

Usually, that question is meant just as a way of saying hello.  “Great . . . fine,” we answer, without really thinking about it. When we do stop to consider the question for a moment or two, often the way we believe life is treating us equates with things such as how many people are pleased with us at the moment, the numbers in our bank accounts, the state of our nation, our health, our living space, or finding successful spots in the workplace.

Really, though, couldn’t there be a little more to what makes us happy? Joy may not always be linked with conditions external to us. There was an interesting study done one time that compared the level of happiness of a group of people who’d been in accidents in contrast with the level of happiness for a group of lottery winners. Initially, as you might imagine, the first group of people were generally less happy than those in the second group. Yet, surprisingly, the levels of happiness for people in both groups actually returned over time to somewhat similar levels they’d had before any accident or unexpected riches.

In other words, if someone was cranky and sullen before winning a gargantuan pile of money in the lottery, he or she returned to that same crankiness within just a few months! Permanent joy couldn’t be purchased even with stacks of cash. Could it be that such anger and unhappiness possibly come from the inside—could they be almost habitual?

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