Time last week ran “The Science of Happiness” as cover story. Psychology Today’s current cover is “True Happiness.” No surprise, friends & family are the greatest source of happiness. (The message is a lot more sophisticated than that—e.g., friends top family, in many cases.) But what struck me was the uniform absence of work-as-a-centerpiece-of-happiness. Was it the researchers’ biases? Is it the “Dilbert Factor”—most people think work sucks? Regardless, work is what we spend the most time doing—so it is obviously front & center in this issue, whether for good or for ill; which makes its absence surprising, to the point of nuttiness. No?
Check out today’s new poll on this topic.