happiness – the right combination
mr. mehta’s shrinking smile must have broadened by miles with his latest issue selling more than hot cakes at least on cold railway platforms. after all the issue addresses one of the questions that pose no definitive answer to the teeming millions in quest of the same.
what is happiness? this age old question has haunted many a great thinker and thought leader. however recent research has moved in the direction of trapping happiness within a broad framework so as to come up with a magic potion that might actually guarantee happiness. a well-composed piece in the magazine points out to a fundamental definition of the same. happiness has been defined as a mix of work, love and hope.
though i might not have been in a position as fortunate to have been in a situation of copious work, love or hope, the small incidents and moments in my life put me in a situation where i can completely believe in this prescription. however what actually i disagree with is the effort to quantify happiness as a pre-defined weighted combination of the ingredients.
my argument bases itself on a couple of lines of argument. for one, based on the short questionnaire of four questions, each as broad as mr. mehta’s smile, i doubt the validity of the end result. the recipe to happiness is after all not same for every individual. different proportions of the components may give different results for different guinea pigs. besides i believe that contingency is an important factor to be taken into consideration. it is dependent on as varied factors as previous levels of happiness and relative comparison with kith and kin.
as a matter of fact i have a feeling that the formula to calculate happiness could actually yield results for levels of joy experienced by an individual. though many of us might think of both as same or at least similar, my belief is that they differ on dimensions more than one. for instance the time frame in question and the question of absoluteness as against relativity are questions that need to be addressed. though i might be hypercritical in my judgement, in my opinion, the results of the test are likely to be marginally more accurate than the result of a love calculator or the infamous ‘flames’ test.
in my opinion it is virtually impossible to quantify happiness. though defining the key constituents is indeed a small step in the forward direction, it indeed requires a giant leap of faith to actually trust the formula for it is more a sample mean with enormous deviation from the measure of central tendency!
what is happiness? this age old question has haunted many a great thinker and thought leader. however recent research has moved in the direction of trapping happiness within a broad framework so as to come up with a magic potion that might actually guarantee happiness. a well-composed piece in the magazine points out to a fundamental definition of the same. happiness has been defined as a mix of work, love and hope.
though i might not have been in a position as fortunate to have been in a situation of copious work, love or hope, the small incidents and moments in my life put me in a situation where i can completely believe in this prescription. however what actually i disagree with is the effort to quantify happiness as a pre-defined weighted combination of the ingredients.
my argument bases itself on a couple of lines of argument. for one, based on the short questionnaire of four questions, each as broad as mr. mehta’s smile, i doubt the validity of the end result. the recipe to happiness is after all not same for every individual. different proportions of the components may give different results for different guinea pigs. besides i believe that contingency is an important factor to be taken into consideration. it is dependent on as varied factors as previous levels of happiness and relative comparison with kith and kin.
as a matter of fact i have a feeling that the formula to calculate happiness could actually yield results for levels of joy experienced by an individual. though many of us might think of both as same or at least similar, my belief is that they differ on dimensions more than one. for instance the time frame in question and the question of absoluteness as against relativity are questions that need to be addressed. though i might be hypercritical in my judgement, in my opinion, the results of the test are likely to be marginally more accurate than the result of a love calculator or the infamous ‘flames’ test.
in my opinion it is virtually impossible to quantify happiness. though defining the key constituents is indeed a small step in the forward direction, it indeed requires a giant leap of faith to actually trust the formula for it is more a sample mean with enormous deviation from the measure of central tendency!
posted by raama @ 12:04:00 PM
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