What Makes You Happy?
Can you believe researchers actually study this? But they do. And it's a fast-growing, lucrative area of science. Molly Petrilla at smartplanet.com recently interviewed a psychologist, Sonja Lyubomirsky , who has written several books about this, and how she herself tries to keep, well, happy. One of the first topics Lyubomirsky talks about (can she really be happy with that name?) is the fact that there's no such thing as a dream job. Sorry to disappoint you all out there but what makes people happy in their jobs is excitement and passion, and that only lasts so long. "We’re not hard-wired to be passionate and excited all the time. In fact, we probably wouldn’t want to be because it would be hard to get things done. But our expectations are way too high. I talk in the (new) book (The Myths of Happiness) about a lot of people who are constantly in search of the ‘dream job.’ And there is no dream job," Lyubomirsky tells Petrilla in their interview. The psych...