In Family Way: Don’t worry. Be happy
March 1, 2010 by Erika Stutzman
Filed under In a Family Way, Relationships
After the rains
I wanted to learn from this moment.
A fabulous beach vacation with my family: On the third day, we rested.
We woke up and it was gray. Then the skies opened up and the rain didn’t stop until long after the invisible sun had set.
I started the day with that vague discomfort I always feel when things are awry. What if it rains for the rest of the trip? What if my disappointment ruins the fun for everyone?
But I had never gone to the beach with little children before. Our small resort room was a castle for the 2-year-old — she’d skip from the couch to the window to watch all the large cruise ships drifting in and out of the cove, like giant ghosts in the mist. A warm bath was as fun as any swimming pool; better, in some ways, because her chubby little feet could touch the bottom.
The 4-year-old glammed it up, putting on the adult-sized plush slippers, and ordering room service just like Eloise at the Plaza.
The next day, and the next, and the next, the sun burned a bright hole through an impeccable blue sky, warming our winter bones and sprinkling freckles across our shoulders and noses.
But even now, weeks later, the 4-year-old talks about our rainy day as if it were part of the itinerary. Ask her about Mexico, and she’ll tell you it has beaches, and the ocean and room service.
I think about happiness a lot for someone who is, generally speaking, happy.
A collection of studies in 2002 concluded that materialism — the desire for more stuff — made people unhappy, whether they were rich or poor. People who looked on the bright side were happiest; but don’t feel bad if you don’t, because 50 percent of that ability is genetic. Grateful people were happy; unforgiving people were unhappy.
A 2004 study of more than 900 Texas women showed that money — as long as people weren’t in poverty — didn’t make a lick of difference, but that lack of sleep did. Sex and socializing made people happy; commuting and housework did not.
A 2009 study by Harvard may be the longest running happiness survey ever, starting in 1937. This one started with male Harvard sophomores. Stable marriages, not smoking and having good relationships made people happy. So did exercise. Alcoholism made people unhappy. (They found that this was not putting the cart before the horse — we assume unhappy people tend to drink more. The study actually found that abusing alcohol was a larger factor in making people unhappy to begin with.)
They all make sense, all these scientists working so hard to tell us whatever it is that we should already know. (Take my happiness survey, please. Ba-da-bum!)
I’ll keep looking for their answers. But I think I’ve seen the secret to happiness, and it looks a lot like warm baths and room service on a wonderful, unanticipated rainy day.
— By Erika Stutzman
erika@womensmag.com
