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Video - What does it mean to be happy and how does one attain true happiness?

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Video - What does it mean to be happy and how does one attain true happiness?

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I celebrated a big birthday recently. I won't say which birthday, but let's just say it was big enough that from now on I'm going to think twice before I buy anything in quantity. Keeping up with the latest research on how to age happily and healthily has become of even more vital personal interest to me than it already was.

When I think of "old age," my mind focuses first on a host of possible ills, from inconveniences like an achy back to serious diseases and disabilities, not to mention the looming "Big D" out there. But much as I like to whine about getting older, I must say I am far happier than at any other point in my life. So I've been wondering: Am I an oddity or do other people feel happier as they enter the "golden years," too? And, if not, is there anything they can do about it?

Fortunately, my personal experience appears to reflect a general pattern. Here are 5 recent studies that provide fascinating glimpses into the cozy relationship between aging and happiness. Use the specific happiness tips at the end of each study to raise your odds of contentment as you age.
1. In general, surveys show that older people are happier people.
Polls of people at different ages in 149 countries reveal a startling pattern. When asked to rate their life satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10, most adults in their early 20s reported fairly high happiness levels, with a gradual fall-off as they approached midlife. Adults reported being least happy in mid-life, roughly between the ages of 39 and 57, with the happiness low point at age 50.

Here's the most surprising part: As they aged, older adults rated their life satisfaction much higher, with happiness ratings rising gradually and steadily from age 50 through the decade of the 90s. Researchers are calling this process the "U-curve" of happiness. When put on a graph, the results actually form a lop-sided smile. (Check out the graph here in Jonathan Rauch's Atlantic Monthly piece.)

The data leave room for a variety of interpretations. Maybe knowing our days are numbered helps us savor them even more. But whatever the explanation, "... studies show quite strongly that people's satisfaction with their life increases, on average, from their early 50s on through their 60s and 70s and even beyond-for many until disability and final illness exact their toll toward the very end."

Exact their toll. Old age certainly is not all sweetness and light. But this counter-intuitive survey research gives cause for optimism. If we do feel happier past age 50 and beyond, then it makes sense to stay healthy so we can enjoy our older years. There's truth in the old saying, attributed to composer Eubie Blake: "If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself."

So Step One is...live long enough to get old.

What you can do: If you aren't happy, just wait a few years. You'll be happier! Meanwhile, take good care of yourself.

2. Older people find happiness in the "ordinary" things. Young people seek extraordinary experiences-experiences that are novel, exciting, and provide bragging rights. By contrast, older people can find happiness in the so-called ordinary experiences of life-familiar, peaceful, and predictable events. Seniors tend to stop pining for that fabulous trip to the temples of Cambodia and enjoy the small pleasures of a meal at a new restaurant or a visit from a friend.

Of course, this generalization does not apply to everyone. Think of President George H.W. Bush, who famously celebrated his 90th birthday by skydiving out of a plane. Nonetheless, as a general rule, older adults find themselves increasingly delighted by daily-life experiences.

It's encouraging that even with limited finances or impaired health, our waning days can be filled with happy moments, as New York Times money writer Ron Lieber points out here.

What you can do: Learn to savor the small moments of your day. Remember that happiness is an "inside job."

3. Meaningful relationships, even online relationships, add to happiness among the aging.

Psychologist Laura Carstensen and her colleagues write: "As people age and time horizons grow short, people invest in what is most important, typically meaningful relationships, and derive increasingly greater satisfaction from these investments." In line with this observation, research suggests that even online connections can lower the risk of depression in retired people by as much as 1/3 compared to those who do not go online.

4. Volunteering is a pathway to happiness for many older adults.
What you can do: Cultivate relationships that matter. Send cards and emails, make calls, and arrange get-togethers. Join one social media site.

People like to feel useful. That's why 2-3 hours per week of volunteering can bring a host of happiness and health benefits in its wake (more than 2-3 hours/week has no additional benefit). After examining 73 studies on aging, researchers concluded that volunteering was associated with a lower risk of depression and a higher feeling of well-being among people 50 and older. They also found health benefits such as greater longevity and better overall health. People who volunteer also developed new relationships, itself a predictor of happiness in older-aged people (see #3 above).

What you can do: Decide on a type of volunteering that fits your personality and values. If you dread your volunteer work, you've made the wrong choice. Choose again! If you don't want a volunteer job, think about friends or family who could benefit from your regular help or attention. Or, if you love your profession, just keep working.

5. Decide on a purpose for your golden years.

Some elders experience a decline in their sense of purpose in life as they age, but this feeling is by no means inevitable. Protective factors against feelings of isolation and loss of meaning can include volunteer work, frequent contact with family, and continued employment, among others. "Purpose" may even be protective of your brain health, according to PT blogger Maclin Stanley. He cites research that indicates that "people who have a greater sense of purpose in life are more likely to have slower rates of mental decline, even as plaques and tangles develop in their brains. Purpose has also been linked to decreased mortality and happiness in old age...."

In fact, setting and reaching achievable and worthwhile goals leads to happiness, whatever your age.

What you can do: Decide on a "purpose project." Your project could range from writing your memoirs for your grandchildren to a social action project. Or, if your purpose in retirement is to have more fun, do that! My wonderful, people-loving aunt enjoyed herself until her last day of life at age 95, when she told the hospice nurse to call her lady friends and cancel her bridge game. Because my aunt had so much fun, she invigorated everyone around her. The gift of fun is priceless!
Need some New Year's resolution solutions? Read my book, Changepower! 37 Secrets to Habit Change Success (Routledge, 2009). And follow me on Twitter and Facebook for year-round help and humor.
As I re-read this blog, I still find it hard to believe that there's such a strong correlation between aging and happiness-even though it's true of me! Old stereotypes-and stereotypes about the old-die hard. But the truth is more complex--and more hopeful. It's reassuring to know that our odds of happiness may actually increase as we pass through the portal to old age.

© Meg Selig, 2015

Sources:

Studies show quite strongly...Carstensen: Meaningful Relationships. " The Real Roots of Midlife Crisis," Rauch, J.

Ordinary v. extraordinary experiences. Lieber, R. Based on this research.

Online relationships and happiness. PsyBlog.

Volunteering. Science Daily.

And...see this blog by Dawn Carr, "5 Reasons Why You Should Volunteer."

Purpose and aging. Maclen Stanley blog here.

Goals and happiness. Research described in Selig, M. Changepower (Routledge, 2009), p. 222.

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Older But Happier? 5 Amazing Findings from Recent Research

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I celebrated a big birthday recently. I won't say which birthday, but let's just say it was big enough that from now on I'm going to think twice before I buy anything in quantity. Keeping up with the latest research on how to age happily and healthily has become of even more vital personal interest to me than it already was.

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How does Gatsby try and attain happiness and how does this relate to the real world?

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How does Gatsby try and attain happiness and how does this relate to the real world?

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He tries to seem happy with all of the money he has and he is trying to make sure that he can stay happy by pursuing his life dream of being with Daisy. He appears to be happy, but in reality he will never be happy unless he gets this one thing that he wants. This can be true in the real world because if people are fixated on one item for happiness, they might never be able to achieve this and never be truly happy. His money is only one method to get to his true goal of Daisy. He lost out on a lot of possibilities because of his fixation with Daisy.

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Adults are a little different than teenagers because they in general have had more time to experience the world and in turn are able to have a  better understanding of themselves and what they like. It is seen in the brain that adults are still stimulated by the activities they used to enjoy but they have also found something new. Since the brain is more developed, adults are able to find enjoyment from new things and they seek to gain new knowledge. Teens are trying to replicate the feelings that they think can make them happy, while adults are able to find out what that truly is. This can best be demonstrated by Nick who realizes that he does not need money to be happy. He turns down Gatsby's bribe and is just content with helping other with their goals.

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- Nice Cars
- Photography
- Money
- Food
Like me and other teenagers, Jay is also generally likes the same things like food and money. This are superficial items, but chasing these things do help stimulate the brain and can provide relief from some problems that can occur in life. This is why these items can lead to happiness. Even if this is not true for Jay, it can be seen in teens that they are chasing superficial things so that they can stay happy and avoid facing problems. This is most demonstrated by Holden because he was getting kicked out of school and not conforming to society because he had not found the meaning of life and happiness yet. He needed time to explore and learn more to see what was important to him and a lot of teens today are likely in the same situation.

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Does technology influence people and contribute to addiction and other bad habits?

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Does technology influence people and contribute to addiction and other bad habits?

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Technology is creating bad habits for everyone because they are not able to have as much face to face interaction with others. Addiction often entirely takes over the thoughts of people which causes them to lose themselves. Technology plays a very important role in today's society and people can often become dependent on technology and might not be able to function without it. Addiction to others and technology is detrimental to the brain and it can be seen that addiction can lead to low self-esteem and a large amount of guilt. Guilt can affect one's life and everyone else around them. This can mainly be seen through the crucible and Abigail. She is selfish and is only thinking of her own happiness and not the happiness of John Proctor. She thinks she knows what is best and she ends up ruining many people's lives and I think that she is selfish and can no longer deal with the guilt of ruining other people's life so she runs away. She was addicted to John Proctor in a sense because her entire motivation revolved around him.

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Are you a tangled mess of BlackBerrys, emails, PDAs, iPhones, laptops, and cell phones? Here's how to untangle your life and find healthy balance.
From the WebMD Archives

Jenn Hoffman, Phoenix-based CEO of The J Brand Group, should have been enjoying a relaxing vacation on the Cote d'Azur. Sipping champagne and nibbling on cheese at the posh Louis XV restaurant, she was eagerly awaiting her entree, a poached Breton lobster. But then, poised next to the breadbasket, her BlackBerry Pearl came to life, and so did her technology addiction.

She lunged for it and swiftly pecked out a response to my request for BlackBerry anecdotes: "I'm so addicted to this device that I stopped mid-bite to rush to send this message. My dining partners are staring at me with contempt as I write this."

"My BlackBerry runs my life," Hoffman says. She's got a 24/7 technology habit, even checking messages from the bathroom, a Whistler ski lift, and a pool raft at L.A.'s Chateau Marmont hotel. Her boyfriend calls her laptop, which she brings to bed every night, "the other man."

Hoffman is not alone in dealing with technology overload. Email, PDAs, iPhones, laptops, and cell phones dominate our modern world. Our uber-connected lives have made us virtually available at any time, at any place -- the movies, the golf course, traffic lights, you name it. Here, we look at simple strategies to reduce the electronic overload and regain a healthy balance of life, work, and technology.

(Are you addicted to technology? What electronic toy can you just not live without? Compare with others on WebMD's Health Cafe board.)

The Paradox of Modern Life

We are now more wired than ever. Researchers from the University of Glasgow found that half of the study participants reported checking their email once an hour, while some individuals check up to 30 to 40 times an hour. An AOL study revealed that 59 percent of PDA users check every single time an email arrives and 83 percent check email every day on vacation.

"I live and die in email," says IT manager Christopher Post in Camp Hill, Pa. "I found a PDA to be a double-edged sword. It can certainly allow you to do a lot more in any given day, but there is certainly a cost associated. I tend to lose out on a lot of other experiences, like when I should be paying attention at the dinner table."

Continued

You've got to take back control, says Edward Hallowell, MD, author of CrazyBusy: Overbooked, Overstretched, and About to Snap! "The great thing about modern life is you can do so much," he says, "and the curse of modern life is you can do so much."

It's the new epidemic, Hallowell says. "People joke about being crazy busy. Sometimes they brag about it, like being busy is a status symbol. But they don't realize that it's as harmful for them as obesity or cigarette smoking."

Hopelessly Addicted to Messaging

A self-diagnosed addict, Hoffman estimates that she receives up to 500 emails and texts a day -- and stubbornly responds to every single one, even at 3 a.m.

"It's a compulsion, like an itch you have to scratch," she says. "Like Pavlov's dog, I hear the bell and I run to the BlackBerry salivating. I think I have carpal tunnel or something. I will keep texting until I'm in pain."

There's something very irresistible about an unopened message, Hallowell says. "You do get a dopamine squirt from accessing your messages. The mail used to come once a day," he says. "Now it comes every second."

There's no shut-off switch, says Beth Feldman, a Westchester, N.Y.-based entrepreneur who juggles a BlackBerry, iPhone, and cell phone from 7 a.m. to midnight and works with clients across different time zones. "There used to be boundaries," she says, "but now there are no boundaries."

This free-for-all frenzy has a real impact on relationships and families, knocking our work-life balance off-kilter.

Feldman, who is also the co-author of Peeing in Peace: Tales and Tips for Type A Moms, has caught herself checking messages during her kids' musical performances and Little League games. Her kids will ask her afterward: "Mommy, why were you on your BlackBerry?"

She is desperately trying to curb her habits. "The minute you see that flashing light, you start thinking, 'Do I need to check it?'" she says. "I'm not a brain surgeon. I'm not involved in life and death matters. I realized I have to draw a line. If I'm watching my kids' performance, it's not the end of the world if I don't return an email."

Continued

Why We Need to Rest

These constant interruptions take a toll on our bodies and our mental states.

Feldman suffers from headaches after long days spent staring at the computer screen and putting out fires over her cell phone. "The last thing I want is to put myself at risk for a heart attack," she says. "But if you're not getting away from it enough, it could become dangerous."

Jetsetter Hoffman suffers from insomnia and blames part of it on an obsession with being connected.

"It's like I can't even disconnect to go to sleep," she says.

Multitasking can cause the brain to overheat, like a car engine, says Hallowell. "The brain needs periods to recover, not just sleeping at night," he says, "but during the day, [it needs] periods of rest and recovery. It simply can't run straight out all day long at peak performance."

Type A people, who feel obliged to respond to every email, can work themselves into what Dr. Hallowell dubs the F-State - frantic, frazzled, frenzied. "They get toxic stress and burn up energy rapidly and wastefully," he says. "In that state, they do bad work, lose friends, and lose clients. It's bad for them in every measurable way."

If you don't prioritize, Hallowell says, you'll go in many directions at once and you won't do anything well. "You really need to be very clear about what matters most to you," he says, "It won't happen automatically. If you don't take your time, your time will be taken from you."

He adds: "If you de-stress, if you prioritize, everything gets better -- your physical health, your longevity, your enjoyment of life."

New Solutions for a New Age

Nearly two years ago, Scott Dockter, president and CEO of PBD Worldwide Fulfillment Services Inc., decided to take Casual Friday one step further, and created email-free Fridays, where employees are encouraged to talk offline to resolve issues, by picking up the phone or meeting face-to-face.

As a result, he saw an 80 percent email drop-off in the first year and noticed a reduction of unnecessary reports sent and excessive cc'ing.

Continued

The policy changed habits, not just on Fridays. "People started talking to each other," says Dockter, who now leaves his Treo at work at day's end. "[Before] we were robbing each other of our culture."

Hotel manager Rick Ueno went cold turkey from his PDA two years ago. Following his recovery, he started the BlackBerry Check-In Program at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, allowing guests to detox without their gadgets during their stay.

A Canadian government agency has barred employees from using BlackBerries for work overnight, on weekends, and holidays "because they're throwing off staffers' work-life balance."

How to Work Smart

It's very much possible to disconnect, says Tim Ferriss, best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. "The single greatest enemy of creativity is overload," he says. "I believe creativity requires a relaxed acuity, which is rendered impossible by checking email every half hour."

Experiment with short periods of inaccessibility. Your life won't implode, Ferriss says. "As with any addiction, there is a period of withdrawal and anxiety."

Leave your cell phone and PDA at home one day a week. Saturday is a good day to cut off email and cell phone usage. "For most people, it will feel like a two-week vacation," Ferriss says. "The psychological recovery it offers is pretty unbelievable."

Set a "not-to-do list." Don't check email before 10 a.m. to avoid immediate reactive mode, Ferriss suggests. Set intervals to check email, for example, at 10 a.m., 2 p.m., and 4 p.m. Use an auto-responder to explain that you can be reached any time on your cell phone.

Eliminate rather than streamline whenever possible. Lose the RSS feeder, Ferriss says. "If you have an addictive impulse with tools, lose the tool," he says.

Hire a virtual assistant. "A big part of priority management is teaching others tasks," he says. "A big part is getting over yourself. You don't have a superhuman email checking ability."

Buddy up. Don't go it alone on the road to recovery, Hallowell says, because you're likely to revert to your old habits. Ask a colleague, administrative assistant, or spouse to help you enforce the new rules.

Learn moderation. "I'm not anti-technology," Hallowell says. "Some is good for you, but too much is really, really bad."

Sources

SOURCES:

Jenn Hoffman, CEO, The J Brand Group, Phoenix.

News release, University of Glasgow, Aug. 13, 2007.

News release, AOL and Opinion Research Corporation, July 25, 2007

Christopher Post, IT manager, Camp Hill, Pa.

Edward Hallowell, MD, author, CrazyBusy: Overbooked, Overstretched, and About to Snap!

Beth Feldman, Westchester, N.Y., author, Peeing in Peace: Tales and Tips for Type A Moms.

Scott Dockter, president and CEO, PBD Worldwide Fulfillment Services Inc.

News release, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, Feb. 8, 2008.

Ottawa Citizen, "BlackBerry Blackout," Jan. 31, 2008.

Tim Ferriss, author, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.

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When Technology Addiction Takes Over Your Life

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Are you a tangled mess of BlackBerrys, emails, PDAs, iPhones, laptops, and cell phones? Here's how to untangle your life and find healthy balance. From the WebMD Archives Jenn Hoffman, Phoenix-based CEO of The J Brand Group, should have been enjoying a relaxing vacation on the Cote d'Azur.

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This talks about how food directly impacts centers of the brain and that it can stimulate the mind and create the feeling of a natural high. This natural high can come from many different things in life and food is just one of those examples. There still needs to be a balance because eating too much food can lead to a person becoming obese and this would cause them to be unhappy. There needs to be an element of self control so that one can be happy. This can also be related to Gatsby because Gatsby thinks that once he gets Daisy that he will be happy forever. This is necessarily not true. Once Gatsby has Daisy within his reach, the significance of the green light disappears and Gatsby would have to find a new goal to make him happy. He spent so much of his life fixated on Daisy and this made it much harder for him to find out what true happiness is.

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Happiness and food are really highly connected, from the pleasure of cooking and eating to the changes in brain chemistry that food can bring about. Many people are made miserable by food but if we switch that around we can use food to make ourselves happier!

Eating is one of the great sensual pleasures in life, tucking into a juicy steak or a delicious bowl of ice cream can be a real joy and something that makes life really seem worthwhile. Food effects the pleasure and reward centres in our brains in the same way drugs do and this can lead to people experiencing the same problems with food as they do with drugs.

Unhappy people very often turn to food to fill the hole in their lives and this can lead to a downward spiral of obesity and dependence. Unhappy people turn to comfort foods like ice cream, pasta or mashed potatoes, all foods which release energy very quickly into the bloodstream. A quick fix of ice cream makes you feel good for a while but very soon you are back to feeling worse than before, so you need more ice cream to correct the balance. There is a classic pattern of peaks and troughs leading to greater amounts of fatty sugary foods to try and balance our moods.

The western world has an obesity problem and this could well be a symptom of unhappiness - everybody is reaching for comfort foods and takeaways to cheer themselves up. How can we fix this? Make everybody happy! How can we make everybody happy? By showing them how to eat well.

Food effects behaviour too, research done with prisoners and schoolchildren (not at the same time!) has shown that eating a diet which doesn't cause peaks and troughs and contains more fresh fruit and vegetables can radically improve behaviour. Jamie Oliver found that when he persuaded schoolkids to eat better, behaviour in the school was much improved. If it works for kids it can work for their parents, they just need to learn to cook.

Cooking too can be a great source of happiness. When I've had a tough day making websites it can be really therapeutic to chop vegetables and turn them into something tasty. I get to enjoy the food twice! Too many people nowadays are eating ready meals and take aways because they feel that they haven't got the time to cook but they are losing something very precious.

One of the reasons for this rise of the ready meals is the mark-up on these products, it's much more profitable to sell ready meals than the raw ingredients and a lot of marketing goes into persuading people to buy them. Imagine if we put as much effort into promoting cooking healthy food from scratch! It's a problem of the market place that it will always try and sell us the most profitable thing rather than the thing which is best for us, but that's one of the reasons that we have governments; to redress the balance.

Cooking is easy too but a lot of people are scared to do it, we've got a generation now who's parents didn't really cook and they have no confidence that it's something they could do. Cooking is something done by professionals somewhere else. Sadly, the ready meals and takeaways are generally really poor quality, made with the cheapest ingredients and designed to store well but rarely as nice as something made at home with a bit of care.

When you cook a ready meal, you are left with a load of plastic packaging - which goes into landfill. When you cook from inredients, you are left with vegetable peelings - which make great compost!

Food is a fundamental part of our lives and a great starting place for us to make everybody happy. It's a shift from a fast empty life to a healthy happy one.

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Happiness and food are really highly connected, from the pleasure of cooking and eating to the changes in brain chemistry that food can bring about. Many people are made miserable by food but if we switch that around we can use food to make ourselves happier!

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What makes you happy?
1. Video Games
2. Friends
3. Food
4. Family
Results: Large Majority approximately 52% - food. These results can be contributed to the fact that most of the people who took this survey are adolescents and they are still learning what is true happiness. They need time to figure this out and for now the results will show that food is the most picked because this is a way that people are able to cope with other problems and it can provide an escape from reality. These results could possibly change and the answer might be family if the survey was taken by a group of people who are older.

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Why is society broken and can it be fixed?

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Why is society broken and can it be fixed?

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Society is broken because people are selfish and most people do not try to help others and only try and further their own agenda. People often do not recognize their own selfishness. Most people primarily look out for themselves and they do not care about the safety of others, as long as they themselves are still safe. The article states that there needs to be a major change so that this can be fixed. People collectively need to stop being selfish and condemning others for their own mistakes. The problem is that this won't happen because there will always be the one person that is more concerned about themselves than the others around them and it only take one person to ruin the ideal society. This can be demonstrated by the girls in the crucible. They were all innocent and even though they were threatened by Abigail, they did not stand up to her and were fine with sentencing innocent people to death even though they knew it was not the right thing. This shows that people would also need to take a stand and a perfect society can't be created because there will always be people who ignore the wrong in the world.

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While Gordon Brown recognises the importance of work as a way out of poverty, the problem with his approach is that he uses only an economic measurement for poverty.

The economy has been growing for 14 years yet the bill for social security payments has risen by £35 billion in that period, and there are now over five million people dependent on benefits, 3.5 million of whom are economically inactive.

The Government constantly tells us that we need more economic migrants to fill the job vacancies while seeming indifferent to the waste of human capital at home.

Although almost everyone is capable of doing something, too many people in Britain are unable or unwilling to work, increasingly detached from the rest of society; in too many places unemployment has almost become hereditary.

I have met many inspiring leaders of voluntary groups in the inner cities who have shown me what works and what doesn't work. Government action, they say, although motivated by good intentions, can often exacerbate existing problems or create new ones.

That is why Britain tops the international league tables for social problems. In the last 15 years alcohol consumption amongst adolescents has doubled, with 10 per cent of 11- to 12-year-olds regularly binge drinking.

Britain, when compared with other advanced economies, has the largest proportion of drug addicts, the highest levels of personal debt, the highest levels of family breakdown and one of the largest gaps in educational attainment between rich and poor.

With the cost of crime standing at £60 billion the failure of the Government to tackle the causes of crime is also evident; over two thirds of all offenders are alcohol and drug addicts, two thirds come from a broken home and have the reading and numerate age of children of 11.

Furthermore, one third of all young offenders were in care, yet only 0.6 per cent of all children in this country have been in care.

It's not as though spending hasn't increased. Take education as an example - despite a 50 per cent increase in spending under Gordon Brown, sadly little of the spending has affected the lowest educational achievers.

The attainment of our lowest achievers hasn't improved significantly: 5 per cent of children leave school without any GCSEs and 12 per cent fail to achieve five GCSEs at any grade.

In order to break this cycle of deprivation, the Social Justice Policy Group has defined the five key "paths to poverty" - family breakdown, serious personal debt, drug and alcohol addiction, failed education and worklessness.

All of these "paths" are inter-connected and many of those trapped in poverty have experienced more than one of these problems. For example, family breakdown leads to worse life outcomes for children but debt is a significant driver of family breakdown.

Similarly, high levels of failed education contribute to worklessness and economic dependency. To create a lasting solution to poverty we need to simultaneously tackle all of these paths to poverty and abandon Gordon Brown's narrow focus with its high marginal tax rates and perverse incentives.

As Frank Field recently pointed out, under the present system of tax credits a couple with children would have to work 100 hours more than a single parent with the equivalent number of children to achieve the same take-home pay.

Small wonder that we have, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, some 200,000 more lone parents claiming benefits than there are lone parents in the UK.

Breakthrough Britain, the final report of the Social Justice Policy Group, will be published this week. It contains over 190 policy recommendations and it is important to highlight three philosophical differences between our approach and that of Gordon Brown to tackling poverty.

This report sets out to show how we need to help strengthen the welfare society. By that I mean the families and communities working together to give their children a real start in life, with a decent education and clear standards to guide them.

They are the greatest bulwark against social breakdown. At the heart of that lies marriage and for too long governments in Britain have been indifferent to the pressures on married couples.

This country is alone in Europe in having no recognition of the institution in the tax and benefits system and ministers seem to go out of their way to dismiss the idea that the structure of strong families has any bearing on children's outcomes.

In recognising this, we must also recognise that family breakdown can and does occur when the family is in serious debt, when unemployed or when addicted to drugs and alcohol.

That is why our policies will be about strengthening the family and marriage, as well as reducing addiction, improving education, helping people get back into work without the Brown penalties and easing the debt burdens on the worst off.

Also, we recognise that none of this can be done without the voluntary sector. It is often the last chance for those whose lives have failed; we need to help strengthen it and offer a second chance to too many consigned to the scrapheap today.

Iain Duncan Smith is MP for Chingford and Woodford Green, and chairman of the Conservative Party's Social Justice Policy Group

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While Gordon Brown recognises the importance of work as a way out of poverty, the problem with his approach is that he uses only an economic measurement for poverty. The economy has been growing for 14 years yet the bill for social security payments has risen by £35 billion in that period, and there are now over five million people dependent on benefits, 3.5 million of whom are economically inactive.

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First we need a definition of happiness  Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. People often write about what happiness is not and can not really provide an accurate definition of happiness. This is because happiness is tailored differently for everyone. Diving below the superficial aspects of People often do not look past the surface of the superficial things that provide them happiness. Gatsby was just trying to reach his goal, thinking that this would grant him his happiness. This is not necessarily because happiness is often defined as the experiences that provide one with pleasure and not the destination that they are trying to reach. Gatsby made a mistake because he based his entire life off of the misconception that he could repeat the past and that the destination is what would restore his happiness.

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women's health challenges (the menopause

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unexplained fatigue or irritable bowel syndrome. help

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Why do you do what you do? What motivates you to be successful, have relationships, go to work, to take up hobbies, spend time with ...

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The things that make me happy are mostly superficial. I enjoy food, games, getting good grades, and playing sports. These are all very general things and I have yet to figure out what true happiness is. My brain is still developing and these currently activities are currently what I enjoy and it will stay that way until I learn more about myself and the world.