What Makes Us Happy? (continued)

In the “Question of the Day” posted a few days ago, I left out one of the best sources I have come across on the subject. Ironic, because it ran in The Atlantic, where I contribute a twice-weekly online column. It’s also embarrassing, because I read the article this past summer with rapt attention. Not sure what that says, but I think it says something about too much information coming through the brain in this information age of ours.

But more than any other resource in that last post, I recommend this one, for anyone pondering the question about what makes us happy. It is, in fact, an article entitled “What Makes Us Happy?” —and it chronicles a 72-year longitudinal study on 268 men in the Harvard classes of 1942-1944. They were the best and the brightest; a group that, in theory, had the best chance of anyone of being happy.

The results are fascinating. Among the group were a best-selling novelist, several who ran for the U.S. Senate, a cabinet member, and one man who became President. (The group included John F. Kennedy, but his records have been sealed until 2040.) But by age 50, almost a third of the group had also, at one time or another, met the study psychiatrist’s criteria for mental illness.

But sifting through all the data over the span of the men’s lives, Dr. George Valiant, who has conducted the study for most of the past 40 years, found some interesting correlations and insights—especially as the men aged (almost all of the group’s remaining members are now in their late 80s).

So what does make us happy? A mixture of many factors and events in our lives, combined with how we manage to cope with them. Not surprisingly, combat (most of the group served in WWII) leaves lasting scars. Social ease and position, important earlier in life, seems to matter less as time goes on. But–perhaps not surprisingly–Valiant concluded that the ability to use defenses and adaptations successfully enough to have healthy “warm connections” with others was the single most important factor to successful aging. “The men’s relationships at [age] 47 predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses,” writes Joshua Wolf Shenk, the article’s author.

The online version of the article also includes a video interview with George Valiant—who, ironically enough, had a bit of a struggle finding happiness in his own life, for all he studied it in others. Lots of food for thought in this one, appropriate to ponder as another year in all our lives draws to a close.

Lane Wallace is the Editor and Founder of No Map. No Guide. No Limits.