Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The pursuit of happiness

In Newsweek, an article on how "The push for ever-greater well-being is facing a backlash, fueled by research on the value of sadness."

The rather mindless cultural drive to assure us that we're all supposed to be happy practically all the time strikes me as an insidious symptom of the lack of general medical understanding of the mind-body connection. We treat the body as only body; we treat the mind as only mind.

Working hard to convince everyone that our goal is unalloyed, 24/7 happiness seems to be the emotional equivalent of attempting to gain a bulked-up, Mr. Universe-style physique--neither natural nor desirable for most people, and loaded with unintended side effects for later in life.

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