![]() Well, one reason is that although children are a source of happiness, they tend to crowd out other sources of happiness. How can my children not be a source of great happiness? People are surprised to find this, because they value and love their children above all things. ![]() GILBERT: I might substitute something kinder for the word blame, but it probably is true that without children, your marriage might be happier in the sense that you would report more daily satisfaction. I'm just saying - Joe, if you're listening to this. GILBERT: Well, they're blaming you for everything.īRAND: I'm not saying I personally. The good news is it begins to go up again once children have grown, and according to most studies, it reaches its initial level, or at least very close to it, when the children leave home.īRAND: So I can blame my kids for my unhappy marriage. Relationships usually are the gateway to hard work: the hard work of raising children, establishing a household, et cetera. GILBERT: It really is true that if you look at the happiness of people's marital satisfaction over time, you'll see that the day people get married, they're extremely satisfied with the relationship, and it kind of goes downhill from there. But scientists do say that, other scientists who don't value their marriages like I do. GILBERT: Well, I don't say that because if my wife hears it on the radio, I'm in trouble. So with a little modification, the great philosopher Larry David is not far off.īRAND: However, you do say that satisfaction ebbs considerably, the longer you're married. But if we could read that liberally as, if you're not involved in a relationship, then indeed, we see that people who aren't in romantic relationships are less happy than those who are. Now, when he says if you're not having sex, I think he's probably injecting some of his own personal values there. We all know that, and science certainly attests the truth of what he's saying. If you're not doing something with your time that's reasonably satisfying, your happiness is going to be lower. DANIEL GILBERT (Host, "This Emotional Life"): It's certainly that simple for him. If you don't have a job that you like and you're not having sex, you're just not going to be happy. LARRY DAVID (Co-Creator of "Seinfeld"): I don't think it's that much of a mystery. Throughout the series, you have celebrities giving what they think contributes to happiness, one of whom is Larry David, who is a co-creator of "Seinfeld." Here's a piece of tape when he's asked what the secret is to happiness. He's a professor of psychology at Harvard University and author of the book "Stumbling on Happiness." "This Emotional Life" is hosted by Daniel Gilbert. Well, for free, you can find out by tuning into a TV series, beginning tonight on PBS, called "This Emotional Life." No relation to a certain public radio show, I don't think. We Americans spend billions of dollars on self-help books that promise to let us in on the mystery. Want to know the secret to happiness? A lot of us do. ![]()
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