ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠShortly before the holidays, I heard an intriguing piece on American Public Media's radio show “Marketplace” that I thought had implications for how we raise our children and that was introduced by these lines: “Money can't buy happiness, but happiness can mean money.” The segment went on to state that a recent review of 255 studies published in The Psychological Bulletin found that being successful and rich are not the keys to happiness. University of California at Riverside psychology professor Sonia Lubermersky was quoted as saying, “Many people assume that money makes people happy, but the research shows that actually people adapt very quickly to whatever they have and then they just want more.” The real key to success, she said, is happiness. Happier people, the research consistently found, are more optimistic than their peers, they are more confident, sociable, and productive, and they end up earning more money. One study found that the happiest college freshmen made, on the average, $25,000 more per year by mid-life than their unhappier peers.
ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠLubermersky stated that a good new year's resolution is to try to become more optimistic. If people can view “the glass as half full,” she said, they are likely to be healthier, more energetic, and report greater levels of happiness. These seem like worthy goals, too, to attempt to inculcate within our children as we parent them.