What Makes Us Happy?

Case No. 218

How’s this for the good life? You’re rich, and you made the dough yourself. You’re well into your 80s, and have spent hardly a day in the hospital. Your wife had a cancer scare, but she’s recovered and by your side, just as she’s been for more than 60 years. Asked to rate the marriage on a#FF0000 scale of 1 to 9, where 1 is perfectly miserable and 9 is perfectly happy, you circle the highest number. You’ve got two good kids, grandkids too. A survey asks you: “If you had your life to live over again, what problem, if any, would you have sought help for and to whom would you have gone?” “Probably I am fooling myself,” you write, “but I don’t think I would want to change anything.” If only we could take what you’ve done, reduce it to a set of rules, and apply it systematically.

This is the beginning of a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly, and is an utterly fascinating summary of the work of George Vaillant and his rather obsessive but scientific study of 268 men who entered Harvard in the late 1930s, and tracked them through "war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age," in search of what makes for a good life.

Warning, however: details about each man's life, which appear in the article (each "case" cited is done so anonymously) are voluminous, sometimes irritatingly so. Vaillant measured everything he could think of, especially physically.

John F. Kennedy is now known, just discovered lately, to be one of these men. His records have been sealed for another 30 years.

Two traits Vaillant has identified which, in his opinion, help to make men happy: healthy adaptation to the issues and problems that surround them, and social aptitude, how well they get along with people.

To read the Atlantic Monthly article, click on this link.