In 2007, a group of researchers began testing a concept that seems as if it would never need testing: Is more happiness always better than less? The researchers asked college students to rate their feelings on a scale from "unhappy" to "very happy" and compared the results with academic and social outcomes. Although the "very happy" participants had brilliant social lives, they performed 1 in school than those who were merely "happy".
The researchers then examined a data set from another study that rated college freshmen's "cheerfulness" and 2 their income nearly two decades later. They found that the most 3 were not the highest earners. That distinction (荣誉) once again went to the second-highest group, which rated their cheerfulness as "above average. "
As with everything in life, happiness has its 4. Pursuing happiness to the exclusion of other goals-known as psychological hedonism (享乐主义)—is5. It gives a life where you do not reach your full potential, where you are 6 to take risks, where you choose temporary pleasures over challenging experiences that give life meaning.
When I talk with people about their fear of negative outcomes in life, their true source of fear, in many cases, 7 how they will feel about having failed, not about the consequence of the failure itself. This is similar to the way that discomfort with 8 causes more anxiety than guaranteed bad news. To 9 these bad feelings, people give up kinds of opportunities that involve the possibility of failure.
However, bringing good things into your life, whether love or career success, usually involves risk. Risk does not, of course, 10 make us happy. A risky life will very likely bring disappointment, but it can bring greater 11 than a life played safe, as the studies above suggested.
None of this is to say that we are foolish for wanting to be happy. 12, the desire for happiness is natural and normal. Making the pursuit of positive feelings your highest or only goal, however, is a costly life strategy. Endless happiness is impossible to achieve, and doing so 13 many of the elements of a good life. As the Canadian-American psychologist Paul Bloom wrote, "It's the 14we choose that affords the most opportunity for pleasure, meaning, and personal growth."
Though pain should never be anyone's goal, each of us can strive for a rich life in which we not only seek the sunshine but fully 15 the rain that inevitably falls as well. This is the paradox (悖论) of being fully alive.
