The Other Insider's Guide to Happiness

The key to happiness isn't what people think it is. People think families, ie kids, are what make people happy. This is largely because "Professor Gilbert said the brain was hard-wired to make people reproduce, not necessarily make them happy." Resulting in "people invest so much time and money in their children, and focus on the fleeting moments of joy they bring, rather than on the long periods of boredom and irritation, that most continue to believe children will bring them happiness, Professor Gilbert said."

What is the key? The answer appears to be "giving to others", which they found by studying people who meditated. "More recent research among lay people who had done a two-week course of 30 minutes' meditation a day found a measurable boost in activity in the part of the brain implicated in empathy compared with a control group."

To get happiness, one should meditate apparently... except, I don't think that's quite right. To me, the key sounds like "get some sleep", and then you'll be prepared to cope with the rest of the world.

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