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Happiness: Enough Already
The push for ever-greater well-being is facing a backlash, fueled by research on the value of sadness.


I am trying to figure out why this article upsets me so much. I guess because several members of my family (including me) are on medication for mood disorders. I read this as insinuating that perhaps we are just a little too eager to forego a truly authentic life in exchange for a surcease of the pain of depression. Well, actually, the article is talking about the pain of sadness, which it seems to conflate with depression.

Am I over-reacting? Your reactions?

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Date: 2008-02-05 05:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nmsunbear.livejournal.com
I do have a problem with determining the "value" of happiness based on criteria such as earnings or education

Exactly -- I was amazed that anyone would suggest that being too happy is bad because if you were less happy you might be impelled to make more money! (And where's the consideration of the flip side, that perhaps money, or the process of getting it, eventually causes more problems than it solves?) The only part of that argument that made sense to me was the political participation part, which incidentally is the one they didn't bother claiming to have evidence for.

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