David Brooks brings ‘hap­pi­ness research’ back to the wider public’s atten­tion with a suc­cinct sum­mary of research into what does and does not make us happy:

Would you exchange a tremen­dous pro­fes­sional tri­umph for a severe per­sonal blow? […]

If you had to take more than three sec­onds to think about this ques­tion, you are absolutely crazy. Mar­i­tal hap­pi­ness is far more impor­tant than any­thing else in deter­min­ing per­sonal well-being. If you have a suc­cess­ful mar­riage, it doesn’t mat­ter how many pro­fes­sional set­backs you endure, you will be rea­son­ably happy. If you have an unsuc­cess­ful mar­riage, it doesn’t mat­ter how many career tri­umphs you record, you will remain sig­nif­i­cantly unfulfilled.

Brooks goes on to look at the con­fus­ing cor­re­la­tions between hap­pi­ness and wealth before dis­cussing the wider “cor­re­spon­dence between per­sonal rela­tion­ships and happiness”:

The daily activ­i­ties most asso­ci­ated with hap­pi­ness are sex, social­iz­ing after work and hav­ing din­ner with oth­ers. The daily activ­ity most inju­ri­ous to hap­pi­ness is com­mut­ing. Accord­ing to one study, join­ing a group that meets even just once a month pro­duces the same hap­pi­ness gain as dou­bling your income. Accord­ing to another, being mar­ried pro­duces a psy­chic gain equiv­a­lent to more than $100,000 a year.

If you want to find a good place to live, just ask peo­ple if they trust their neigh­bors. Lev­els of social trust vary enor­mously, but coun­tries with high social trust have hap­pier peo­ple, bet­ter health, more effi­cient gov­ern­ment, more eco­nomic growth, and less fear of crime (regard­less of whether actual crime rates are increas­ing or decreasing).

via Fred Wil­son

I dis­cussed the ‘com­muters para­dox’ last year, not­ing that “a per­son with a one-hour com­mute has to earn 40 per­cent more money to be as sat­is­fied with life as some­one who walks to the office”.