look but don’t touch: wanting expensive things feels better than owning them in the atlantic
“Thinking about acquisition provides momentary happiness boosts to materialistic people, and because they tend to think about acquisition a lot, such thoughts have the potential to provide frequent mood boosts,” Richins wrote, “but the positive emotions associated with acquisition are short-lived. Although materialists still experience positive emotions after making a purchase, these emotions are less intense than before they actually acquire a product.”
jonathan safren foer on technology, “saving” time and being alone in the nyt
"Let’s assume, though, that we all have a set number of days to indent the world with our beliefs, to find and create the beauty that only a finite existence allows for, to wrestle with the question of purpose and wrestle with our answers.
We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved time along with it, or makes the saved time less present, intimate and rich. I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts. It’s not an either/or — being “anti-technology” is perhaps the only thing more foolish than being unquestioningly “pro-technology” — but a question of balance that our lives hang upon.“
happiness over time: promotion-mindedness vs. prevention-mindedness in the atlantic
““What the hell happened to me?” she would wonder. A lot of people feel that way to some extent when we look back at our younger selves and realize how much we’ve changed. The answer, of course, is that we all grow up — and for many of us, what it means to be “happy” slowly evolves into something completely different.”
victor frankl and happiness vs. meaning in the atlantic
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing,” Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way…”
Compelling Atlantic article on why kids with “perfect” childhoods often are unhappy as adults.
A few excerpts:
“I can’t tell you how often I have to say to parents that they’re putting too much emphasis on their kids’ feelings because of their own issues. If a therapist is telling you to pay less attention to your kid’s feelings, you know something has gotten way of out of whack.”
“Please let them be devastated at age 6 and not have their first devastation be in college! Please, please, please let them be devastated many times on the soccer field!”
“…measures of self-esteem are poor predictors of how content a person will be, especially if the self-esteem comes from constant accommodation and praise rather than earned accomplishment…research shows that much better predictors of life fulfillment and success are perseverance, resiliency, and reality-testing.”
Photo: Sally Mann
Findings from The Longevity Project in The Atlantic: "It may not directly sicken or shorten the life of the person experiencing the unhappiness. But it apparently can be toxic for people who have to live with that unhappy person.“
Megan Frauenhoffer
check out this wonderful three-part pbs series (i found it well worth the time commitment) created by harvard’s happiness expert daniel gilbert.
series overview (chevy chase, john leguizamo, and robert kennedy jr. are among the contributers)
