There is a series of articles on BBC about happiness. Research into happiness suggests that our levels of happiness changes throughout our lives. That sounds pretty obvious. But what is interesting is that most people are unhappiest in there 30’s and 40’s which is the age that I am at. We all start out happy when we are kids, dip to the lowest point in our 30’s and 40’s and then rise back to our childhood levels when we are grandparents.
Personally I can say that I am not as happy as I was when I was Mohan’s age. But then again we tend to only remember the good times and forget the bad times. Its discouraging that i still have more then a decade to cross my forties and get into the upswing of my happiness curve. But I am looking forward to it. My dad and mom seem more happy now then when they were in there forties. I am sure it had a lot to do with me and my sister hitting adolescence at that same time.
Another article suggest that there is a formula for happiness
Pleasure + engagement + meaning = happiness.
Apparently most people get pleasure from loving their work, engagement from their family and friends and meaning from religion or spirituality. When all these ingredients are added in the right amounts, it produces happiness. If we have too much of any one thing, its might lead to sadness. Notice that there is not money in the equation 
There is research that suggests that marriage makes you happy and kids don’t. Well they say that kids are neutral in that they give you as much happiness as they make you worry about them. Although I must say that those fleeting moments of happiness are worth the trouble mostly. Then again my kids are only 5 and 1. Lets see how the equation is once they grow up. But the marriage part is surprising, considering all my married friends always complain about how miserable it is to be married. Single life was bliss.. But then again we tend to only remember the good parts right
June 14, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Satisfaction is pretty easy to guage, but I think happiness is nigh metaphysical. There is a study somewhere documenting two groups of people: winners of the lottery jackpot and paraplegics. Now naturally, one would expect lottery winners to be a much happier group of people than paraplegics. And early on (i.e. right after winning the lottery or having an accident), lottery winners were indeed “happy” and paraplegics were indeed “unhappy”. But as time went on, the “happiness” of both groups began to level out. Until two years after the survey began, both groups were more or less at an equal level of happiness….
June 15, 2007 at 11:36 am
“Happiness is the satisfaction of all our desires, extensively, in respect of their manifoldness, intensively, in respect of their degree, and protensively, in respect of their duration.” -Kant
I like this post very much.
July 25, 2007 at 4:20 am
Happiness is only found in the spirit. Vedanta emphatically states that freedom is our real nature and it is only God or the experience of our real self that can give us permanent happiness.