Features

Written by Legal Record Webmaster   

By Jerry Riley

I was watching a video tape of a repeat of a rerun of an old episode of Frasier. He had moved from Boston (and Cheers) to Seattle a year ago and Niles asked him if he was happy -a question that took the entire show to answer.
Happiness is defined in my favorite online dictionary as “a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.” According to some researchers about “50% of one’s happiness depends on one’s genes, based on studying identical twins. 10% to 15% is a result of various measurable life circumstances variables, such as socioeconomic status, marital status, health, income, sex The remaining 40% is a combination of unknown factors and the results of actions that individuals deliberately engage in to become happier.”
It made me wonder about happy, so I started asking people. Yes, I got some strange looks. I’m used to that though, and, what a revoltin’ development that is! The first answer was sweet - CHOCOLATE; this was a reoccurring answer. At the IGA, one of the shoppers said she would be happy to see the end of winter. Now, probably an end to the heat wave.
One of the girls said sleep. Another said if she got home from work and found someone had cleaned the house, she would be happy. Other answers were wives and family. One girl said seeing other people happy makes her happy. Books and reading. Vacation was high on the list and some mention of money. Non-verbal responses ranged from sly miles to wicked grins.

Jerry Riley is an occasional commentator for the News Bulletin. He is a retired telecommunications supervisor.