The simple things
Who can resist a show featuring a Harvard researcher doing research on—of all things—happiness?
I could not. So despite the many minor interruptions (irritations), like the selling and upselling of Shawn Achor’s books and videos, I kept at it.
Here are some of the stuff I learned (and remembered):
1. Those in Harvard, despite Harvard being Harvard, are not happy. Researcher Shawn Achor says that in his experiment, hapless freshmen are only happy for the first 2 weeks—happy to be accepted and besting a thousand others for the coveted slots, happy to be in Harvard’s hallowed halls and relishing its old world smell, happy to be at the center of the intellectual universe. But when the reality of pressure—ever present, permeating the walls (and their every capillary)— becomes apparent, they get lost into the vortex of competing with themselves, forever justifying (to themselves) that they deserved to be there.
At the end of it all (if Achor is to be believed), the Harvardians are just grateful to be let out alive and to smoke the Harvard pipe (misery, they say, loves company).
