That is an version of The Surprise Reader, a e-newsletter wherein our editors suggest a set of tales to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Enroll right here to get it each Saturday morning.
My colleague Derek Thompson has written about People’ social isolation and nervousness. However this week, he writes, “I believed I’d flip issues round for a change. What issues most for happiness—marriage, cash, or one thing else totally?”
Studying about the important thing to happiness can generally really feel like a trick: Might it actually be so simple as a given skilled makes it out to be? As Derek notes, “Intelligent sociologists will at all times discover new methods of ‘calculating’ that marriage issues most, or social health explains all, or revenue is paramount.” However his analysis leads him to what he calls a “subtler reality”—a “happiness trinity” of which “funds, household, and social health are three prongs” rising collectively and falling collectively.
As we speak’s e-newsletter explores some subtler truths about American happiness.
On Happiness
The Happiness Trinity
By Derek Thompson
Why it’s so onerous to reply the query What makes us happiest?
Take a Spouse … Please!
By Olga Khazan
Why are married folks happier than the remainder of us?
A Happiness Columnist’s Three Greatest Happiness Guidelines
By Arthur C. Brooks
A superb life isn’t nearly getting the small print proper. Listed here are some truths that transcend circumstance and time.
Nonetheless Curious?
Different Diversions
P.S.
Final week, I requested readers to share a photograph of one thing that sparks their sense of awe on this planet. Karolina L., 26, in Warsaw, wrote: “I at all times search for on the moon once I’m strolling at evening. Regardless of the place I’m, it makes me really feel at house—like I’ve a buddy watching over me.”
I’ll proceed to share your responses within the coming weeks. In the event you’d prefer to share, reply to this electronic mail with a photograph and a brief description so we are able to share your marvel with fellow readers in a future version of this article or on our web site. Please embody your identify (initials are okay), age, and site. By doing so, you agree that The Atlantic has permission to publish your photograph and publicly attribute the response to you, together with your first identify and final preliminary, age, and/or location that you just share along with your submission.
— Isabel
