Happiness, Social-Scientist Style

So for my new job I was going through our archives and found an old edition of the volunteer newsletter with an article in it about happiness. According to the article, there are only a few things that make for most of our sense of well-being:

1. Good, close relationships (friends and family)
2. A sense of control over one's life
3. The right amount of work - not too much and not too little.

I would add a fourth:

4. the practice of being grateful.

As far as money buying happiness, it does, up to a point: after you get your basic needs covered, more money does not make you proportionally happier. The guy riding the bus to work, is going to statistically be about as happy as the guy driving his Mercedes.

Interesting, eh?

One other thing -- I've posted a couple of sermons on my sermon blog.