What makes you happy, and what doesn’t?

What gives you happiness? This New York Times article collects together a number of tidbits from research studies that look at what are the things that make you happy and what are the things that you think will make you happy, but don’t.

Money doesn’t make you happy:

On a personal scale, winning the lottery doesn’t seem to produce lasting gains in well-being. People aren’t happiest during the years when they are winning the most promotions. Instead, people are happy in their 20’s, dip in middle age and then, on average, hit peak happiness just after retirement at age 65.

On the other hand, your relationships do make you happy.

If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting. According to one study, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. According to another, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year.

I guess we all know that already; but it’s interesting that there’s a dollar figure attached to a happy marriage!

And, the parting thought:

The second impression is that most of us pay attention to the wrong things. Most people vastly overestimate the extent to which more money would improve our lives. Most schools and colleges spend too much time preparing students for careers and not enough preparing them to make social decisions.

See the full article – it’s short and sweet and interesting.