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Sep 2, 2007

"It doesn't matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years - we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on." --Sharon Salzberg

Eighty Year Study On Happiness & Giving

One of the longest-running social-science studies on happiness began in Oakland, California, in the 1920s with 200 people. It combined semi-annual interviews until participants graduated from high school, and has since followed them at intervals of 10 years. An astounding 90 percent of people have stayed in the study, giving it coherence and offering insights into what constitutes a happy life. One of the keys is generativity—the ability to give to others—according to psychologist and researcher Paul Wink of Wellesley College, who oversees the study and has co-authored a book on the findings titled In the Course of a Lifetime.