IMAGINING THE UNIMAGINABLE

Health and Happiness Aren't Always Linked (Eric Nagourney, New York Times, February 15th, 2005)

Are healthy people happier than seriously ill ones?

Not necessarily.

In a study described in The Journal of Experimental Psychology, a group of people with end-stage kidney failure were provided with electronic devices that prompted them to record their moods at various times throughout the day. For comparison, a group of healthy volunteers used the same devices.

When researchers tabulated the results, they found that the levels of happiness were about the same for the two groups.

The researchers, led by Dr. Jason Riis of Princeton when he was a graduate student at the University of Michigan, also found that the healthy people greatly overestimated how unhappy the sick ones would be. And the sick people overestimated how happy healthy ones would be.

"For most of us," the authors write, "it would take a lot more than we think to make us permanently miserable."

A healthy young adult should no more be considered capable of giving binding instructions about restrictions on his care when he is old and sick than a twelve year old should be left to decide when is the right time to have sex.