Happiness - how can you feel it more everyday?

It's a very rare occassion that I might blog about something with great politcal and social implication. However, that broader context can at times affect our day to day lives and our sense of empowerment. While perusing the various online news magazines this morning I came across an article that made me think about how the social and political environment affects our happiness as individuals.

An article in Newsweek "Blacks are getting happier" makes some great points about increasing happiness. The writer notes that blacks are getting happier and whites are not. While I do not believe any one race ought to have a corner on the happiness markets, there are some valid, tangiable and intangiable, reasons why this is occurring.

"...it is clear that what has changed most are things that we cannot measure, and which spring from rights, heightened status, and erosion of prejudice. Stevenson and Wolfers write: “Our study illustrates that the fruits of the civil rights movement may lay in other, more difficult to document, improvements in the quality of life.” It makes sense that respect and esteem can lift your spirits. It may also translate into an ongoing optimism: a Gallup poll taken this year found 63 percent of blacks thought their standard of living was getting better; 41 percent of whites did."

Another point made is with regard to women, expectations and reality. Women have come a long way in 100 years but stagnation in social attitudes and economic policy frustrates the road to equality still.

So here we are, one day after the 90th anniversary of women gaining voting rights in America and one day before the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech (If you've never heard it in it's entirety I recommend you watch/listen), I ask you to reflect on how far you have come, how far you might need to go, and what you can do to get there.

The value and importance of these two landmark events, the struggles that lead to them, and how we can use this to benefit ourselves and our communities are worth a few minutes of consideration.

Let's get happier!

Here's the link to the article: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/27/baird-blacks-whites-and-the-happiness-gap.html?from=rss