HAPPINESS has traditionally been considered an elusive and evanescent thing. To some, even trying to achieve it is an exercise in futility. It has been said that “happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
Social scientists have caught the butterfly. After 40 years of research, they attribute happiness to three major sources: genes, events and values. Armed with this knowledge and a few simple rules, we can improve our lives and the lives of those around us. We can even construct a system that fulfills our founders’ promises and empowers all Americans to pursue happiness.
Psychologists and economists have studied happiness for decades. They begin simply enough — by asking people how happy they are.
The richest data available to social scientists is the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey, a survey of Americans conducted since 1972. This widely used resource is considered the scholarly gold standard for understanding social phenomena. The numbers on happiness from the survey are surprisingly consistent. Every other year for four decades, roughly a third of Americans have said they’re “very happy,” and about half report being “pretty happy.” only about 10 to 15 percent typically say they’re “not too happy.” Psychologists have used sophisticated techniques to verify these responses, and such survey results have proved accurate.
Beneath these averages are some demographic differences. For many years, researchers found that women were happier than men, although recent studies contend that the gap has narrowed or may even have been reversed. Political junkies might be interested to learn that conservative women are particularly blissful: about 40 percent say they are very happy. That makes them slightly happier than conservative men and significantly happier than liberal women. The unhappiest of all are liberal men; only about a fifth consider themselves very happy.
But even demographically identical people vary in their happiness. What explains this?
The first answer involves our genes. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have tracked identical twins who were separated as infants and raised by separate families. As genetic carbon copies brought up in different environments, these twins are a social scientist’s dream, helping us disentangle nature from nurture. These researchers found that we inherit a surprising proportion of our happiness at any given moment — around 48 percent.
If about half of our happiness is hard-wired in our genes, what about the other half? It’s tempting to assume that one-time events — like getting a dream job or an Ivy League acceptance letter — will permanently bring the happiness we seek. And studies suggest that isolated events do control a big fraction of our happiness — up to 40 percent at any given time.
But while one-off events do govern a fair amount of our happiness, each event’s impact proves remarkably short-lived. People assume that major changes like moving to California or getting a big raise will make them permanently better off. They won’t. Huge goals may take years of hard work to meet, and the striving itself may be worthwhile, but the happiness they create dissipates after just a few months.
So don’t bet your well-being on big one-off events. The big brass ring is not the secret to lasting happiness.
To review: about half of happiness is genetically determined. Up to an additional 40 percent comes from the things that have occurred in our recent past — but that won’t last very long.
That leaves just about 12 percent. That might not sound like much, but the good news is that we can bring that 12 percent under our control. It turns out that choosing to pursue four basic values of faith, family, community and work is the surest path to happiness, given that a certain percentage is genetic and not under our control in any way.
The first three are fairly uncontroversial. Empirical evidence that faith, family and friendships increase happiness and meaning is hardly shocking. Few dying patients regret overinvesting in rich family lives, community ties and spiritual journeys.
Work, though, seems less intuitive. Popular culture insists our jobs are drudgery, and one survey recently made headlines by reporting that fewer than a third of American workers felt engaged; that is praised, encouraged, cared for and several other gauges seemingly aimed at measuring how transcendently fulfilled one is at work.
Those criteria are too high for most marriages, let alone jobs. What if we ask something simpler: “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?” This simpler approach is more revealing because respondents apply their own standards. This is what the General Social Survey asks, and the results may surprise. More than 50 percent of Americans say they are “completely satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their work. This rises to over 80 percent when we include “fairly satisfied.” This finding generally holds across income and education levels.
This shouldn’t shock us. Vocation is central to the American ideal, the root of the aphorism that we “live to work” while others “work to live.” Throughout our history, America’s flexible labor markets and dynamic society have given its citizens a unique say over our work — and made our work uniquely relevant to our happiness. When Frederick Douglass rhapsodized about “patient, enduring, honest, unremitting and indefatigable work, into which the whole heart is put,” he struck the bedrock of our culture and character.
I’m a living example of the happiness vocation can bring in a flexible labor market. I was a musician from the time I was a young child. That I would do it for a living was a foregone conclusion. When I was 19, I skipped college and went on the road playing the French horn. I played classical music across the world and landed in the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra.
I was probably “somewhat satisfied” with my work. But in my late 20s the novelty wore off, and I began plotting a different future. I called my father back in Seattle: “Dad, I’ve got big news. I’m quitting music to go back to school!”
“You can’t just drop everything,” he objected. “It’s very irresponsible.”
“But I’m not happy,” I told him.
There was a long pause, and finally he asked, “What makes you so special?!”
But I’m really not special. I was lucky — lucky to be able to change roads to one that made me truly happy. After going back to school, I spent a blissful decade as a university professor and wound up running a Washington think tank.
Along the way, I learned that rewarding work is unbelievably important, and this is emphatically not about money. That’s what research suggests as well. Economists find that money makes truly poor people happier insofar as it relieves pressure from everyday life — getting enough to eat, having a place to live, taking your kid to the doctor. But scholars like the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman have found that once people reach a little beyond the average middle-class income level, even big financial gains don’t yield much, if any, increases in happiness.
So relieving poverty brings big happiness, but income, per se, does not. Even after accounting for government transfers that support personal finances, unemployment proves catastrophic for happiness. Abstracted from money, joblessness seems to increase the rates of divorce and suicide, and the severity of disease.
And according to the General Social Survey, nearly three-quarters of Americans wouldn’t quit their jobs even if a financial windfall enabled them to live in luxury for the rest of their lives. Those with the least education, the lowest incomes and the least prestigious jobs were actually most likely to say they would keep working, while elites were more likely to say they would take the money and run. We would do well to remember this before scoffing at “dead-end jobs.”
As百度竞价推广ble these clues and your brain will conclude what your heart already knew: Work can bring happiness by marrying our passions to our skills, empowering us to create value in our lives and in the lives of others. Franklin D. Roosevelt had it right: “Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”
In other words, the secret to happiness through work is earned success.
This is not conjecture; it is driven by the data. Americans who feel they are successful at work are twice as likely to say they are very happy overall as people who don’t feel that way. And these differences persist after controlling for income and other demographics.
You can measure your earned success in any currency you choose. You can count it in dollars, sure — or in kids taught to read, habitats protected or souls saved. When I taught graduate students, I noticed that social entrepreneurs who pursued nonprofit careers were some of my happiest graduates. They made less money than many of their classmates, but were no less certain that they were earning their success. They defined that success in nonmonetary terms and delighted in it.
If you can discern your own project and discover the true currency you value, you’ll be earning your success. You will have found the secret to happiness through your work.
There’s nothing new about earned success. It’s simply another way of explaining what America’s founders meant when they proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that humans’ inalienable rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This moral covenant links the founders to each of us today. The right to define our happiness, work to attain it and support ourselves in the process — to earn our success — is our birthright. And it is our duty to pass this opportunity on to our children and grandchildren.
But today that opportunity is in peril. Evidence is mounting that people at the bottom are increasingly stuck without skills or pathways to rise. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston shows that in the 1980s, 21 percent of Americans in the bottom income quintile would rise to the middle quintile or higher over a 10-year period. By 2005, that percentage had fallen by nearly a third, to 15 percent. And a 2007 Pew analysis showed that mobility is more than twice as high in Canada and most of Scandinavia than it is in the United States.
This is a major problem, and advocates of free enterprise have been too slow to recognize it. It is not enough to assume that our system blesses each of us with equal opportunities. We need to fight for the policies and culture that will reverse troubling mobility trends. We need schools that serve children’s civil rights instead of adults’ job security. We need to encourage job creation for the most marginalized and declare war on barriers to entrepreneurship at all levels, from hedge funds to hedge trimming. And we need to revive our moral appreciation for the cultural elements of success.
We must also clear up misconceptions. Free enterprise does not mean shredding the social safety net, but championing policies that truly help vulnerable people and build an economy that can sustain these commitments. It doesn’t mean reflexively cheering big business, but leveling the playing field so competition trumps cronyism. It doesn’t entail “anything goes” libertinism, but self-government and self-control. And it certainly doesn’t imply that unfettered greed is laudable or even acceptable.
Free enterprise gives the most people the best shot at earning their success and finding enduring happiness in their work. It creates more paths than any other system to use one’s abilities in creative and meaningful ways, from entrepreneurship to teaching to ministry to playing the French horn. This is hardly mere materialism, and it is much more than an economic alternative. Free enterprise is a moral imperative.
To pursue the happiness within our reach, we do best to pour ourselves into faith, family, community and meaningful work. To share happiness, we need to fight for free enterprise and strive to make its blessings accessible to all.
大家习惯觉得幸福很难捉摸、稍纵即逝。对于一些人来讲，获得幸福甚至是徒劳无功的。有人说“幸福就像是一只蝴蝶，当你追逐时，总是抓不住，但假如你想静静地坐下来，它可能飞落在你身上。”
社会科学家已经捕捉到了蝴蝶。经过40年的研究，他们把幸福归因于三种主要来源：基因、事件和价值。拥有如此的常识和几条容易的规则，大家就能改变自己与周围人的生活。大家甚至可以建设一个达成大家建国者承诺的体系，让所有美国人追求幸福。
心理学家和经济学家已经研究幸福这个话题几十年了。他们开始只不过非常简单——问大家他们有多幸福。
现有对社会科学家最丰富的数据来自芝加哥大学的综合社会调查，这是自1972年就开始展开的对美国人的调查。这类广泛应用的资源被觉得是理解社会现象的黄金学术标准。从调查得出关于幸福的数据出奇的一致。四十年中的每两年，大致三分之一的美国人说他们“很幸福”，一半说“挺幸福的”。只有典型的百分之十至十五说他们“不太幸福”。心理学家通过复杂的办法来检验这类回答，事实证明，此类调查结果是精确的。
在这类平均数值之下是一些人口统计方面的差异。不少年以来，研究者发现女人比男士更幸福，尽管近代调查争论说此差距已经缩小或者调查结果甚至可能已经相反了。政治狂热者可能感兴趣了解守旧的女人特别容易幸福：大约40%的人说她们很幸福。她们比守旧的男士稍微幸福，比自由的女人幸福得多。最不幸福的是自由的男士;只有五分之一说自己很幸福。
但即便是人口统计上一致的人的幸福指数也不同，这说明了什么?
第一个回答是与大家的基因有关。明尼苏达大学的研究者跟踪调查了从小被分开在不同家庭中养育的同卵双胞胎。由于基因副本在不一样的环境中长大，帮助大家把先天和后天的养育分开，这类双胞胎是社会科学家的梦。研究者发现无论什么时间，大家继承幸福的比率出人预料——约48%。
假如大家大约一半的幸福是与基因硬性连接的，那另一半呢?这叫人想到那些一次性的事件——比如得到一份理想工作或者常青藤大学的录取函——会永久地给大家带来所追求的幸福。研究表明，单独事件会控制大家非常大一部分的幸福——在任何特定时间高达40%。
但尽管一次性事件确实控制大家大多数的幸福，每一个事件的影响却证明是很短暂的。大家以为像搬家去加州或者大幅涨薪如此的大变化会让他们永远地幸福。其实不会。伟大的目的或许需要长年累月的辛苦劳作才达到，奋斗本身也会值得，但这带来的幸福感会在短短几个月后消失。
所以不要把大的一次性事件当做你幸福的赌注。中头奖可不是幸福长久的诀窍。
回顾一下：约一半的幸福是由基因决定的。大约40%来自近来发生的事情——但这种幸福感不会保持很长时间。
那就只剩下12%了。可能看起来不多，但好消息是大家可以完全控制这12%。鉴于某部分幸福感是遗传的，无论如何都不由大家控制，那样选择追求四种基本的价值观——信仰、家庭、社区和工作则是通往幸福最可信的道路。
前三个是毫无争议的。实验性证明信仰、家庭和友情会提升幸福感，而其非凡意义也毫不让人惊讶。极少有临终患者后悔过度投资在丰富的家庭生活、群体联系和精神之旅上。
然而，工作貌似没那样直观。大众文化都在强调大家的工作是苦差事，近期有一个上了头条的调查，据报道，少于三分之一的美国职员对工作投入，也就是被称赞、鼓励、关心，还有几个其他测量貌似是针对评估一个人在工作时有多么满足的。
那些标准对于大部分婚姻来讲都太高了，不要说工作。假如大家问更容易的问题会如何呢：“从整体来看，你有多认可你的工作?”这个更容易的办法更有启迪用途，由于调查对象都有我们的标准。这也是美国社会调查问的问题，结果惊人。超越50%的美国人说他们“完全认可”或者“非常认可”他们的工作。假如加上回答“挺认可的”的人，将超越80%。如此的调查结果适用于不一样的收入阶层和教育程度。
这应该不会让大家感到震撼。职业对于美国理想来讲尤为重要，是那句格言：大家“活着是为了工作”，别的人“工作是为了活着”的根源。纵观大家的历史，美国灵活的劳工市场和动态社会让其市民对工作有一种独特的怎么看——并让大家的工作与幸福有独特的联系。当弗雷德里克·道格拉斯把“全心全意地投入耐心、持久、诚实、不懈和不屈不挠的工作”写入狂想曲时，他塑造了大家的文化和性格的基石。
我就是一个在灵活的劳工市场中，职业带来幸福的活生生的例子。我从小就是一个音乐家，以此谋生也在预料之中。19岁时，我舍弃读大学，走到街上吹起了法国圆号。我在世界各地弹奏古典乐，最后加入了巴塞罗那交响乐团。
我或许对我们的工作“有点认可”。但在我二十八九岁时，那种新鲜感消失了，我开始策划一个不一样的将来。我打电话给在西雅图的爸爸：“爸，我有个重大消息要宣布，我要舍弃音乐事业回去上学了!”
“你不能就如此舍弃所有”，他反对道。“如此非常不负责任。”
“但我不高兴，”我告诉他。
停顿了很久，终于他问，：“你如何会这么特殊?!”
但我真的不特殊。我非常幸运——可以转换到一条让我真的感到幸福的道路上是幸运的。回到学校后，我愉快地度过了作为教授的十年，而且开心地运行了一个华盛顿智囊团。
一路走来，我认识到一份有收成的工作真是很难置信的要紧，这断然与资金无关。研究表明也是这样。经济学家发现资金会让真的贫困的人更幸福，它缓解了平时生活的重压——有足够吃的，有地方住，带你的孩子去看大夫。但像诺贝尔获奖者丹尼尔·卡尔曼如此的学者发现一旦大家的收入超出通常中产阶级收入水平一点，即便是丰厚的经济收成也对幸福感的提高没多大成效。
所以缓解贫困会带来非常大的幸福感，但收入本身不会。即便政府的转移性支出可以支持个人财务，但失业仍会毁灭幸福。除去资金，失业好像会增加离婚率、自杀率和疾病的紧急性。
依据社会调查，将近四分之三的美国人即便有意料之外之财让他们享受下半辈子，他们也不会舍弃工作。那些受教育程度最低、收入最少、工作最低等的人更倾向于继续工作，那些精英阶层更或许会拿钱走人。在嘲笑“无前途的工作”之前，大家要好好检讨一下。
结合以上线索，你的大脑会得出一个你的内心已经了解的结论：工作会把大家的热情和技能结合，让大家为自己和别人的生活创造价值，从而获得幸福。富兰克林罗斯福说得对：“幸福并不只在于拥有资金，而在于收获感带来的愉悦和创造性努力带来的开心。”
换句话说，工作中获得幸福的秘密在于获得的成功。
这不是凭空猜测，而是由数据证明的。在工作中感到成功的美国人比那些没如此感觉的人更大概说自己大体上非常幸福。如此的差异在除去收入和别的人口统计数据原因后仍存在。
你可以选择任何一种货币来衡量你获得的成功。你可以用美金来计算，当然——也可以用你教会阅读的小孩的数目，保护的栖息地或者拯救的灵魂。我以前教研究生时，发现那些追求非盈利事业的社会企业家就是我最快乐的学生中的一部分。他们赚的钱比不少同学赚的少，但一样非常确信自己获得了成功。他们用非货币的形式来概念那种成功并因此而快乐。
假如你能领悟源于己的项目并发现你在乎的真的货币，你就能获得成功。你就能通过工作发现幸福的秘密。
对于获得的成功没新的概念。只不过用另一种方法来解析美国建国者在宣布独立宣言时的意思：人类不可剥夺的权利包含生命、自由和对幸福的追求。
这个精神契约把建国者与大家今天的每一个人连接起来。大家有权概念幸福，努力获得幸福并在过程中勉励自己——获得大家我们的成功——是大家与生俱来的权利。大家有责任把如此的机会传递给小孩们和孙子们。
但今天如此的机会岌岌可危。愈加多的证据证明底层人民因没技能或者上升渠道而被困住。波士顿联邦储备银行的研究指出，在上世纪80年代，21%的底层收入美国人在10年间上升入中等或更高收入的阶层。直到2005年，这个百分比下滑了近三分之一，降低至15%。一个2007年的皮尤剖析指出加拿大和斯堪的纳维亚半岛大多数区域的迁移率是美国的两倍多。
这就是主要问题，自由企业的拥护者太晚意识到这点。仅仅觉得大家的体系赐予每一个人平等的机会是不够的。大家要为那些可以逆转让人不安的移动趋势的政策和文化。大家需要那些为小孩的公民权利服务的学校，而不是为了成人的工作保障。大家要鼓励为最边缘化的群体创造就业机会，对每个级别的创业障碍发起进攻，从对冲基金到修建树枝。大家要复苏对成功文化要点的精神领悟。
大家也需要清除错误的想法。自由企业并不意味着破坏社会安全体系，而是拥护那些能真的帮助弱势群体，打造可以保持这类承诺的政策。它不代表反射性地为大企业欢呼，而是平衡游戏场地让角逐胜过任人唯亲。它不会致使“如何都行”的自由主义，而是自制和自控。它当然也不表明无拘无束的贪婪值得赞赏或者甚至可以同意。
自由企业给了最多人最好的机会来获得他们的成功，并在他们的工作中找到持久的幸福。它比任何一个体系创造了更多的渠道叫人们用革新和有意义的方法来运用我们的能力，从创业精神到教会、政府部门、吹法国号。这几乎不是容易的唯物主义，远远超越一种经济选择。自由企业是精神上的必需品。
要追求力所能及的幸福，大家尽最大的努力投入到信仰、家庭、社区和有意义的工作中。要推荐快乐，大家就得为自由企业而奋斗，努力让其利益惠及所有人。
