… The youngest adults, who have been marinating in a positive psychology culture since they left the womb, may be the most deeply affected by the inward shift of the search for happiness. A recent survey from Harvard's Graduate School of Education makes the case that we are, as a culture, overfocusing on the "psychological talk and a self-help culture" that has "caused many people to look inward to find meaning and vitality. Yet the self by itself is a poor source for meaning."
Mr. Sandler told me people ask him all the time whether they should track their emotions and whether it will make them happier. He said he tells them to focus instead on contentment, "the feeling of being satisfied with your life overall."
The frenzied, overstuffed marketplace of happiness optimization will never be able to fix the fundamentals of the human condition or bring a lasting kind of purpose to a new generation. There will never be easy or straightforward answers to our most profound questions of existence, and ranking emotions feels like a diminution of their awesome power. I do not want to spend those daily walks home with my daughter wondering how they stack up against a morning run or dinner with a friend or any other moment in my day that might make me feel something. The user experience of being alive cannot be graphed.
"The biggest thing that I learned throughout all of my happiness range tracking," Mr. Sandler said, "is that happiness isn't the end-all goal that I was looking for."
NYTimes: Are We Happy Yet?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/opinion/happiness-tracking-america.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
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