"Be good, do good, live long in peace." --DJ 

 Is Happiness For Real?

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources.

While direct measurement of happiness presents challenges, tools such as The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire have been developed by researchers. Positive psychology researchers use theoretical models that include describing happiness as consisting of positive emotions and positive activities, or that describe three kinds of happiness: pleasure, engagement, and meaning.

Puerto Ricans have ranked highest in the world in one survey of how satisfied people are with their lives, but the result is drawing head-shaking on the Caribbean island, where some say islanders have plenty of personal problems and psychologists estimate nearly one in three are at risk of mental illness


"Puerto Ricans are very self-satisfied. This doesn't mean they are the happiest people," said Puranen, a professor at the University of Stockholm in Sweden.

The survey, published in November, allowed people to rank their happiness and satisfaction with life. Those answers yielded a "subjective well-being" index, on which Puerto Rico ranked No. 1, followed by Mexico and Denmark. But Puranen say cultures define happiness in different, often incomparable ways. "Every person orbits around sets of values," Puranen said. "When a person feels a sense of coherence with others in his culture, he says he is satisfied."

 


Many people think that public display of happiness is a sign of foolishness or weakness, not knowing that happiness is what nurtures a winners attitude.


More than 1,500 Puerto Ricans were surveyed on the island, where people regularly fill the cafes and bars of San Juan to party. On other survey questions, Puerto Ricans ranked 7th in the importance given to leisure, and 60th in the value placed on friends. The U.S. territory's TV program "Sunshine Club" dedicated a skit to spoofing the idea that Puerto Ricans could be the happiest people, suggesting it could be because they are confused.

About 28 percent of Puerto Rican adults are estimated to be at risk of mental illness, and among them about 9 percent have severe mental illnesses, said Silvia Arias, of National Alliance for Mental Illness in Puerto Rico. By comparison, the United States ranked No. 15 in the same "well-being" index, and experts say about 23 percent of North American adults suffer from mental illness.

Puerto Rico's government says about 5 percent of islanders are addicted to alcohol and 4 percent to drugs. The U.S. census said nearly half of the island's 4 million people live in poverty. "We are looking at the future of the nation with pessimism, uncertainty and despair," said Ivonne Moreno-Velazquez, president of the Puerto Rico Psychologists Association.

 

 

Puerto Rico saw nearly one suicide each day from 1990 to 2002, nine out of 10 of them males, according to the island's health department. Three out of five hanged themselves.

Domestic violence is on the rise, with 42 women reported killed last year. There were 793 homicides in 2004, the most in eight years. Police say most were drug-related.

Puerto Rico has been a U.S. territory since it was seized from Spain in 1898. In recent decades it has transformed from an agricultural society to a consumeristic hub, covered with shopping malls and 2.5 million vehicles that clog roads.

"We're certainly satisfied, since we've gotten what we want" from an economic standpoint, said waitress Veronica Colon, 34. "But I don't know if it has made us happy."

 


HAPPINESS is an agreeable sensation that comes
 from contemplating the value and beauty of life.


 

Research has identified a number of attributes that correlate with happiness: relationships and social interaction, extraversion, marital status, employment, health, democratic freedom, optimism, endorphins released through physical exercise and eating chocolate, religious involvement, income and proximity to other happy people.

Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this older sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics.

Happiness economics suggests that measures of public happiness should be used to supplement more traditional economic measures when evaluating the success of public policy.

 


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