You want to be happy. I'm going to make this assumption, and I think I'm in pretty smart company to do so. Socrates once asked his students, "Do not all men desire happiness?" A student answered him, "There is no one who does not."

    If Socrates was right, isn't it reasonable to assume that a decent nation will, at minimum, create the conditions in which its citizens can best pursue happiness? In the Declaration of Independence, the Founders didn't treat happiness as some fuzzy concept; they believed that people wanted happiness and had the right to pursue it. Along with life and liberty, happiness was the connection between the Creator and our nation's destiny, and the ability of its citizens to pursue and achieve happiness was a measure of the effectiveness and morality of the state.

    What matters most for happiness is not having a lot of things but having healthy values.

    But today's leaders and policymakers seem to have forgotten this. To hear politicians talk about gross domestic product, health-care reform, and Social Security, you'd think that this nation's Founding Fathers held as self-evident that we are endowed by our Creator with the ability to purchase new, high-quality consumer durables each and every year, or to enjoy healthy economic growth with low inflation and full employment. The Founders didn't talk about these matters, not because they're unimportant, but because they believed happiness went deeper.

    As a professor of business and government policy, I've long been interested in the pursuit of happiness as a national concept. According to hundreds of reliable surveys of thousands of people across the land, happy people increase our prosperity and strengthen our communities. They make better citizens -- and better citizens are vital to making our nation healthy and strong. Happiness, in other words, is important for America. So when I chanced upon data a couple of years ago saying that certain Americans were living in a manner that facilitated happiness -- while others were not -- I jumped on it.

    I wanted to be able to articulate which personal lifestyles and public policies would make us the happiest nation possible. I also wanted to know which of my own values, learned during my childhood in Seattle and practiced during my career as a university professor, were the most conducive to happiness. I had always thought that marching to the beat of my own drummer and making up my own values as I went along were the right things to do, and that traditional values, to put it bluntly, were for suckers.

    Turns out that I was in for some surprises.

    First, just what is happiness? Most researchers agree that it involves an assessment of the good and bad in our lives. It's the emotional balance sheet we keep that allows us to say honestly whether we're living a happy life, in spite of bad things now and then.

    You might suspect that Americans are getting happier all the time. After all, many （though clearly not all） are getting richer, and this should make them better able and equipped to follow their dreams. On the other hand, there's a lot of talk about the good old days, when kids could play outside without any worry about being kidnapped. And there's a great deal of stress in this country right now, due to financial concerns, negative workplace environments, and chronic health problems, among other pressing issues.

    But average happiness levels in America have stayed largely constant for many years. In 1972, 30 percent of the population said they were very happy with their lives, according to the National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey. In 1982, 31 percent said so, and in 2006, 31 percent said so as well. The percentage saying they were not too happy was similarly constant, generally hovering around 13 percent.

    The factors that add up to a happy life for most people are not what we typically hear about. Things like winning the lottery, getting liposuction, and earning a master's degree don't make people happy over the long haul. Rather, the key to happiness, and the difference between happy and unhappy Americans, is a life that reflects values and practices like faith, hard work, marriage, charity, and freedom.

    Happiness Predictor 1: Faith

    Roughly 85 percent of Americans identify with a religion, and about a third of Americans attend a house of worship every week or more. These statistics have changed relatively little over the decades. By international standards, America's level of religious practice is exceptionally high. In Holland, for example, just 9 percent of the population attends church on a regular basis; in France, it's 7 percent; in Latvia, 3 percent.

    In general, religious Americans （those who attend a place of worship almost every week or more） are happier than those who rarely or never attend. In 2004 the General Social Survey found that 43 percent of religious folks said they were very happy with their lives, compared with 23 percent of secularists. Religious people were a third more likely than secularists to say they're optimistic about the future. And secularists were nearly twice as likely as religious people to say "I'm inclined to feel I'm a failure."

    The connection between faith and happiness holds regardless of one's religion. All nonpartisan surveys on the subject have found that Christians （Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, and others） and Jews, as well as members of many other religious traditions, are far more likely than secularists to say they're happy. It also doesn't matter if we measure religious practice in ways other than attendance at worship services. In 2004, 36 percent of people who prayed every day said they were very happy, versus 21 percent of people who never prayed.

    Of course, not every religious person is happy; neither is every secularist unhappy. Nonetheless, it's clear that faith is a common value among happy Americans.

    Happiness Predictor 2: Work

    If you hit the lottery today, would you quit your job? If you're like most Americans, you probably wouldn't. When more than 1,000 people across the country were asked in 2002, "If you were to get enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life, would you stop working?" fewer than a third of the respondents answered yes.

    Contrary to widely held opinion, most Americans like or even love their work. In 2002 an amazing 89 percent of workers said they were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their jobs. This isn't true just for those with high-paying, highly skilled jobs but for all workers across the board. And the percentage is almost exactly the same among those with and without college degrees and among those working for private companies, nonprofit organizations, and the government.

    For most Americans, job satisfaction is nearly equivalent to life satisfaction. Among those people who say they are very happy in their lives, 95 percent are also satisfied with their jobs. Furthermore, job satisfaction would seem to be causing overall happiness, not the other way around.

    The bottom line here: If we want to be happy, we need to work. And that's advice worth sharing with our kids as well.

    Happiness Predictor 3: Marriage & Family

    Matrimony has taken a lot of hits since the 1960s. It's been said to hold many people, especially women, back from their full potential to be happy. Don't believe it.

    In 2004, 42 percent of married Americans said they were very happy. Just 23 percent of never-married people said this. The happiness numbers were even lower for other groups: Only 20 percent of those who were widowed, 17 percent of those who were divorced, and 11 percent of those who were separated but not divorced said they were happy. Overall, married people were six times more likely to say that they were very happy than to report that they were not too happy. And generally speaking, married women say they're happy more often than married men.

    Marriage isn't just associated with happiness -- it brings happiness, at least for a lot of us. One 2003 study that followed 24,000 people for more than a decade documented a significant increase in happiness after people married. For some, the happiness increase wore off in a few years, and they ended up back at their premarriage happiness levels. But for others, it lasted as long as a lifetime.

    What about having kids? While children, on their own, don't appear to raise the happiness level （they actually tend to slightly lower the happiness of a marriage）, studies suggest that children are almost always part of an overall lifestyle of happiness, which is likely to include such things as marriage and religion. Consider this: While 50 percent of married people of faith who have children consider themselves to be very happy, only 17 percent of nonreligious, unmarried people without kids feel the same way.

    We've all heard that money doesn't buy happiness, and that's certainly true. But there is one way to get it: Give money away.

    The evidence is clear that gifts to charitable organizations and other worthy causes bring substantial life satisfaction to the givers. If you want $50 in authentic happiness today, just donate it to a favorite charity.

    People who give money to charity are 43 percent more likely than nongivers to say they're very happy. Volunteers are 42 percent more likely to be very happy than nonvolunteers. It doesn't matter whether the gifts of money go to churches or symphony orchestras; religious giving and secular giving leave people equally happy, and far happier than people who don't give. Even donating blood, an especially personal kind of giving, improves our attitude.

    In essence, the more people give, the happier they get.

    Happiness Predictor 4: Freedom

    The Founders listed liberty right up there with the pursuit of happiness as an objective that merited a struggle for our national independence. In fact, freedom and happiness are intimately related: People who consider themselves free are a lot happier than those who don't. In 2000 the General Social Survey revealed that people who personally feel "completely free" or "very free" were twice as likely as those who don't to say they're very happy about their lives.

    Not all types of freedom are the same in terms of happiness, however. Researchers have shown that economic freedom brings happiness, as does political and religious freedom. On the other hand, moral freedom -- a lack of constraints on behavior -- does not. People who feel they have unlimited moral choices in their lives when it comes to matters of sex or drugs, for example, tend to be unhappier than those who do not feel they have so many choices in life.

    Americans appear to understand this quite well. When pollsters asked voters in the 2004 Presidential election what the most important issue facing America was, the issue voters chose above all others was "moral values." This beat out the economy, terrorism, the Iraq war, education, and health care as people's primary concern. Pundits and politicians would certainly like us to think otherwise, and critics scoffed at the conclusion, interpreting it as evidence that ordinary Americans were out of touch. But moral values are critical to Americans. This suggests that, as a people, we do best by protecting our political and economic freedoms and guarding against a culture that sanctions licentiousness.

    Lessons for America

    The data tell us that what matters most for happiness is not having a lot of things but having healthy values. Without these values, our jobs and our economy will bring us soulless toil and joyless riches. Our education will teach us nothing. There will be no reason to fight -- or to make peace, for that matter -- to protect our way of life. Our health-care system will keep us healthier, but what's the point of good health without a happy life to enjoy?

    The facts can help remind us of what we should be paying attention to, as individuals and as families, if we want to be happy. There's also an important message here for public policy and politics. We must hold our leaders accountable for the facts on happiness and refuse to take it lightly when politicians abridge the values of faith, work, family, charity, and freedom.

    Candidates running for office should be grilled about happiness in debates and by the press, and their answers should determine our votes.

    Our happiness is simply too important to us -- and to America -- to do anything less.

    The American Way

    Independence is happiness.

    Susan B. Anthony

    All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.

    Daniel Boone

    That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.

    Willa Cather

    There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.

    Henry Ford

    Being passionate about something is the key to success. But using that passion to help others is the key to happiness.

    Arnold Schwarzenegger

    Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness you are able to give.

    Eleanor Roosevelt

    Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

    George Washington

    Happiness is a by-product of a well-lived life, and it is achieved through the pursuit of endeavors that are meaningful and sometimes painful. Mark O'Connell in "The Marriage Benefit"

    I'm happy if everybody else is.

    你想要快樂起來。作為這個智囊團里的一員，我可以做出這樣的假設。蘇格拉底曾有一次問他的學生："并不是所有的人都渴望幸福吧？"一名學生答道："幸福，是所有人都渴望的。"

    如果蘇格拉底是正確的，對一個在最低限度下都可以為人民創造追求幸福條件的國家做出這樣的假設是不是不夠合理呢？在宣布獨立后，領袖們并沒有將幸福作為模糊的理念來執行，他們認為人們都需要幸福并有權利去追求它。隨著生活與自由的前進腳步，幸福不僅成為造物者與國家命運之間聯系的紐帶，同時也是在用國民追求與獲得幸福的能力作為對這個國家道德效力的衡量標準。

    與幸福關系最為密切的是擁有健康的價值觀而非充足的物質生活。

    但似乎今天的領導者與決策者都遺忘了這一點。聽著政治家們談論著國內生產總值、保健改革和社會安全，你會想到國家的開國元勛堅持著不言自明的傳統，造物者賦予我們每年購買嶄新且高級物品的能力，或是享有健康的經濟增長所帶來的低通貨膨脹率和高就業率。創立者們并沒有談論到這些問題，并非它們不重要，而是因為他們認為幸福存在于更深處。

    作為一名商業與政府政策的教授，長期以來我對追求幸福這一國家理念相當感興趣。根據對這片土地上幾千人的數以百計值得信賴的調查顯示，幸福的人們促進了繁榮發展并加強了社會團結。他們造就了更好的公民，而更好的公民對于使國家變得健康強大起來是相當重要的。 幸福，換句話說對于美國是很關鍵的。所以當我幾年前偶然看到一份數據上說一些美國人以追求幸福的方式生活--然而另外一些人卻沒有--我跳過這一段了。

    我希望能明確表達出什么樣的個人生活方式與公共政策可以盡可能讓我們的國家變得更為幸福。我也想知道自己是抱有什么樣的價值觀，童年在西雅圖學習并作為一名大學教授經營這自己的職業生涯，這都是追求幸福最有利的條件。我總是認為跟著自己鼓聲的節拍向前走并與此同時形成自己一套價值觀是正確的做法，而那些傳統的價值觀，說的直接點，都是留給失敗者的。

    原來有些驚喜等著我。

    首先，什么是幸福？大多數研究人員贊成它包含對生活中好與壞的評斷。我們擁有的這張情感平衡單允許我們誠實地講出自己的生活是否幸福，即使不時會發生些糟糕的事情。

    也許你一直對美國人變得越來越快樂感到懷疑。畢竟，許多人（顯然不會是所有人）越來越富有，這樣應該可以讓他們更有能力去追求夢想并付之于行動。在另一方面，當想到不需要擔心在屋外玩耍的孩子們被綁架時，對美好舊時光的討論也逐漸多了起來。而由于經濟金融方面的憂慮，消極的工作環境和慢性健康問題等其它緊急事件，這個國家已承受了太多的壓力。

    但美國的平均幸福水平多數還是維持了多年。據國家民意研究中心的普及社會調查顯示在 1972年，30%的人口表示他們的生活很幸福。1982年，31%的人口這樣說，到了2006年，仍然有31%的人這么說。而表示他們并不夠幸福的人口百分數同樣保持著大概13%左右。

    人們通常聽說的那些能為幸福生活添加籌碼的因素并非如此。像是中彩票，做吸脂手術和獲得碩士學位這些事都不能給人長期的幸福。幸福的美國人與不幸福的美國人之間的區別與關鍵點，反而是在于信仰、努力工作、婚姻、慈善事業和自由這些可以反映價值觀和實踐的生活片段。

    幸福預言一：信仰

    粗略估計有85%的美國人擁有某一種信仰，并且大約三分之一的美國人每周或更頻繁地去教堂。這些數據在這十年里產生相對較小的改變。根據國際標準，美國宗教實踐水平是相當高的。例如，在荷蘭只有9%的人口定期地去教堂；法國為7%;拉脫維亞只有3%.

    一般來說，虔誠的美國人（那些幾乎每周或更頻繁地去教堂的人）比那些很少甚至不去教堂的人更為幸福。2004年的普及社會調查顯示，分別有43%的虔誠民眾和23%的現實主義者表示他們過著很幸福的生活。宗教信仰者比現實主義者多出可能有超過三分之一的人表示他們對未來十分樂觀。而可能大約比宗教信仰者多出兩倍的現實主義者稱"我認為我是失敗者。"

    信仰與幸福之間的聯系與宗教并沒有太大關系。所有關于這一主題的無黨派調查發現基督教徒（新教徒、天主教徒、摩門教和其他教會）與猶太教信徒，以及其他宗教傳統的成員比現實主義者更有可能表示他們是幸福的。這也與我們除了用參加崇拜服務來衡量宗教活動的方式無關。在2004年，分別有36%每天祈禱的人和21%沒有祈禱的人表示他們是十分快樂的。

    當然，并非每一個宗教信仰者都快樂，也非每一個現實主義者都不快樂。然而，信仰顯然是幸福的美國人中一種普遍的價值觀。

    幸福預言二：工作

    如果今天中了彩票，你會辭職嗎？如果是像大多數美國人的話，那你可能不會這么做。當在2002年全國超過一千人被如此問說："如果你擁有足夠的錢讓你可以舒適得度過余生，你會停止工作嗎？"低于于三分之一的回答者表示愿意。

    與廣泛流傳的觀念相反的是，大多數美國人喜歡，甚至熱愛他們的工作。2002年，令人驚訝的是有89%的人表示他們非常或有點滿意自己的工作。這在所有的工人中是事實，但對那些從事高收入，高技術的人來說并非如此。而在無論是否有大學文憑的人與為私人企業、非盈利組織和政府工作的人中，這個百分比是幾乎一模一樣的。

    對大多數美國人來說，工作滿意度幾乎相當于生活滿意度。在那些表示他們生活很幸福的人當中，95%的人對他們的工作也很滿意。此外，工作滿意度似乎也會影響這個幸福，而非其他的方式。

    幸福預言三：婚姻與家庭

    自二十世紀六十年代以來，婚姻生活總有許多的摩擦。據說會讓許多人，尤其是女人回歸到她們快樂的最大潛力。千萬別信。

    2004 年，42%的已婚美國人表示他們非常幸福。而只有23%的未婚者這么說。感到幸福的人的數量甚至低于其他的人群：其中20%的人是寡婦，17%的人已離婚，還有11%與配偶分居的人表示他們是幸福的。總的來說，已婚者中認為自己幸福的比不這么認為的人有可能多出六倍以上。而一般來說，較多的已婚女性比已婚男性表示自己很幸福。

    婚姻不僅僅與幸福有關--至少對于我們很多人來說，它可以帶來幸福感。2003年一項對二萬四千人進行長達十年之久的研究證明在人們結婚后幸福感有很大幅度的提高。對一些人來說，這種幸福感的增長在幾年里會逐漸減弱，然后以回到他們婚前的幸福感水平作為結束。但對另一些人，這可以持續一生的時間。

    那如果有了孩子的話呢？當有了他們自己的孩子后也并未出現幸福水平的提高（實際上幸福感有稍微減弱的趨勢）,研究顯示幸福的生活方式或許包含了像婚姻和宗教這些事情，而孩子同樣也一直是其中的一部分。看看這個：有50%有孩子和宗教信仰的已婚者認為他們自己非常幸福，而只有17%沒有孩子也沒有宗教信仰的未婚者會如此認為。

    我們都聽說過金錢買不到幸福，這當然是對的。但有一種方式可以做到，那就是放棄金錢。

    證據是顯而易見的，給慈善機構的禮物和其他值得的原因能讓給予者對物質生活感到滿意。如果今天你想要價值50美元真實的幸福感，那就把它捐給最愛的慈善機構吧。

    捐贈者比非捐贈者多出43%表示自己很幸福。志愿者比非志愿者多出42%表示自己會幸福。這與金錢的禮物是否送到教堂或交響樂團并無關聯；宗教與世俗的給予能帶個人們同樣的快樂，而這遠遠多于那些從不付出的人。就連捐血這種特殊的個人付出也能夠改善我們的態度。

    基本上，人們付出得越多，獲得的快樂也就越多。

    幸福預言四：自由

    創立者將伴隨著追求幸福的自由二字列于表中，就如一個值得為此向民族獨立作斗爭的事物。事實上，自由與幸福是密切相關的：那些認為自己自由的人比并不這么認為的人要幸福得多。2000年的社會普及調查顯示，個人感覺自己"完全自由"或"非常自由"的人要比沒有這些感覺的人可能多出兩倍認為自己的生活很快樂。

    然而，并非所有的自由方式都代表幸福。研究人員指出經濟上、政治上與宗教信仰上的自由都可以帶來幸福感。而從另一方面來看，對于道德上的自由，即在行為上缺乏約束就并非如此了。一些人感覺在他們的人生中有無數的道德選擇，如性或藥物，那他們比那些不認為有如此多選擇的人要不幸的多。

    美國人似乎相當明白這一點。在2004年總統大選時，當民意測驗專家詢問投票者美國面臨最為重要的問題是什么時， 他們選擇最多的是"道德價值觀".這一項打敗了經濟、恐怖主義、伊拉克戰爭、教育和衛生保健這些人們首要關注的問題。學者與政治家當然希望我們想到其它問題，批評家們嘲笑這一結論，將它解讀成普通美國人與社會脫離的證據。當道德價值觀對于美國人卻起著決定性的作用。這就表示作為一個民族，我們要盡全力保護我們的政治經濟自由，并防范文化的約束力。

    美國的教訓

    數據告訴我們最為關系到幸福的并非很多的物質而是擁有健康的價值觀。沒有這些價值觀，我們的工作和經濟將給我們帶來沒有靈魂的辛勞與沉悶無趣的財富。因此，這將讓我們沒有理由再去拼搏、去維持和平和保護我們的生活方式。衛生保健系統將讓我們更健康，但擁有了健康的身體卻無法享受快樂幸福的生活，這又如何呢？

    無論作為個體或是家庭，如果想要過得幸福快樂，那這些事實可以幫助我們謹記什么才是我們應該留意的。對于公共政策與政治也有一條重要的信息。領導者們要對輔助我們過上幸福擔負起責任，并且不允許用掉以輕心的態度來限制信仰、工作、家庭、慈善與自由這些價值觀的存在。

    候選人的競選辦公室應該對幸福進行詢問與討論，在新聞中他們的答案應該是可以確定我們的選票的。

    我們的幸福對我們，對美國，推其他所有的食物都實在是太重要了。

    美國的方式

    獨立就是幸福。

    Susan B. Anthony

    你的幸福所需就是一把好槍，一匹好馬和一個好妻子。

    Daniel Boone

    這就是幸福：完全并很好的融入到某些事情中。

    Willa Cather

    快樂存在于工作之中。幸福莫非就是發現自己完成了一些事。

    Henry Ford

    對事情保持熱情就成功的關鍵。但用這些熱情去幫助他人便是幸福的關鍵。

    Arnold Schwarzenegger

    當你給他人帶去快樂時你會獲得更多的快樂，你應該好好思考一下當你可以付出時所收獲的快樂。

    Eleanor Roosevelt

    幸福與道德責任密不可分。

    George Washington

    幸福是良好經營生活得副產物，通過對具有意義、有時也會令人煩惱的事業的追求來實現。出自Mark O'Connell--婚姻的恩惠

    如果大家都幸福，我會為此感到高興。