happiness does NOT make you ignore social problems

happiness does NOT make you ignore social problems

One of the biggest myths about happiness is that happy people are selfish. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Happiness is associated with higher levels of kindness and giving, altruism and helping behaviours. Along with this, it’s often assumed that if you want to enjoy happiness you need to ignore some of the world’s social ills. Well, again, wrong…

via the Greater Good by Jill Suttie

There’s a stereotype about people seeking happiness—that all they care about is themselves. They look at the world through rose-colored glasses, and so they refuse to see suffering. If we want to motivate people to care about righting social wrongs, the thinking goes, then we must stoke people’s anger and fear.

Now a new study refutes that narrative. According to the study’s findings, happier people seem to be more likely to take social action than their less happy peers.


Researchers surveyed three different groups of people to see how generally happy they were, then gauged how much they cared about a particular social issue. They also had people report on actions they’d taken in response to the issue, their future plans to take action, and, in some cases, their willingness to sign up on the spot to participate in social action…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE