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Why So Many Smart People Aren’t Happy

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It’s a paradox: Shouldn’t the most accomplished be well equipped to make choices that maximize life satisfaction?

There are three things, once one’s basic needs are satisfied, that academic literature points to as the ingredients for happiness: having meaningful social relationships, being good at whatever it is one spends one’s days doing, and having the freedom to make life decisions independently. But research into happiness has also yielded something a little less obvious: Being better educated, richer, or more accomplished doesn’t do much to predict whether someone will be happy. In fact, it might mean someone is less likely to be satisfied with life. That second finding is the puzzle that Raj Raghun

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