Opinion The Sandra Bullock trade-off

Nonetheless,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.

Over the past few decades,teams of researchers have been studying happiness. Their work,which seemed flimsy at first,has developed an impressive rigour,and one of the key findings is that,just as the old sages predicted,worldly success has shallow roots while interpersonal bonds permeate through and through.

For example,the relationship between happiness and income is complicated,and after a point,tenuous. It is true that poor nations become happier as they become middle-class nations. But once the basic necessities have been achieved,future income is lightly connected to well-being. The US is much richer than it was 50 years ago,but this has produced no measurable increase in overall happiness. On a personal scale,winning the lottery doesn’t seem to produce lasting gains in well-being. People aren’t happiest during the years when they are winning the most promotions. Instead,people are happy in their 20’s,dip in middle age and then,on average,hit peak happiness just after retirement at age 65. People get slightly happier as they climb the income scale,but this depends on how they experience growth. Does wealth inflame unrealistic expectations? Does it destabilise settled relationships? Or does it flow from a virtuous cycle in which an interesting job that in turn leads to more interesting opportunities?

If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated,the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex,socialising after work and having dinner with others. 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 neighbours. 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.

The overall impression from this research is that economic and professional success exists on the surface of life,and that they emerge out of interpersonal relationships,which are much deeper and more important.

The second impression is that most of us pay attention to the wrong things. Most governments release a tonne of data on economic trends but not enough on trust and other social conditions. In short,modern societies have developed vast institutions oriented around the things that are easy to count,not around the things that matter most. They have an affinity for material concerns and a primordial fear of moral and social ones. Governments keep initiating policies they think will produce prosperity,only to get sacked,time and again,from their spiritual blind side.