{"id":263,"date":"2010-01-29T23:10:13","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T07:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=263"},"modified":"2010-01-29T23:10:13","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T07:10:13","slug":"would-you-trade-years-of-life-for-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=263","title":{"rendered":"Would you trade years of life for happiness?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Cross-posted from “<\/em>Sacramento Street Psychiatry<\/a>“<\/em><\/p>\n

The\u00a0New York Times<\/em> blog called “Well” recently\u00a0asked<\/a>: “Will Olympic Athletes Dope if They Know It Might Kill Them?”\u00a0The answer is surprisingly clear: Many would if they could. \u00a0In bi-annual surveys conducted from 1982 to 1995, researcher Bob Goldman asked\u00a0elite athletes whether they would take a drug that guaranteed them a gold medal but would also kill them within five years. Again and again about\u00a0half<\/em> the athletes said yes, they would accept such a trade-off. \u00a0This question has come to be known as the Goldman dilemma, and for most of us the high rate of acceptance is shocking. \u00a0In contrast, a 2009\u00a0study<\/a> asked\u00a0the same question of the Australian general public, and only two of 250 respondents reported they would accept this Faustian bargain.<\/p>\n

Sports success obviously matters more to dedicated athletes than to the rest of us. \u00a0But what about success in general? \u00a0Or\u00a0happiness? \u00a0Would you give up years of life in exchange for more happiness, in whatever form that may take?<\/p>\n

I imagine many of us would say no, especially if the choice were posed concretely (e.g., blissful happiness for five or ten years, then death). \u00a0We live life “for better or worse”; it feels like our duty to accept what life deals out. \u00a0Yet nearly all of us engage in activities that make us happier in the moment at the possible cost of a shortened lifespan. \u00a0From tasty but unhealthy foods to exciting but dangerous extreme sports, from alcohol to tobacco, our actions seem to show that longevity is not our highest priority. \u00a0Memorable experiences are a particularly\u00a0cost-effective<\/a> way to buy happiness, but many of these experiences carry risks.<\/p>\n

One factor that colors our willingness to trade longevity for happiness is how we deal with probability. \u00a0The Goldman dilemma is posed as a sure thing, whereas the risks we face in real life are likelihoods. \u00a0Genuine satisfaction in the moment is weighed against\u00a0potential<\/em> risk later on. \u00a0The latter does not feel quite real, even if its likelihood is very high. \u00a0We rationalize our choices by imagining we will be lucky.<\/p>\n

Even more important is that we choose without consciously choosing. \u00a0No one decides, cigarette by cigarette, how many minutes of life to trade away for each puff. \u00a0Motorcycling and skiing would lose their luster if sober calculations of risk were undertaken before each run. \u00a0We maximize our happiness by means of selective inattention.<\/p>\n

The most shocking thing about athletes’ acceptance of the Goldman dilemma is that they admit, out loud, a value that the rest of us share only silently, awkwardly, and ambivalently: We often do value quality over quantity in life. \u00a0A life devoted exclusively to safety and longevity strikes many of us as unsatisfying. \u00a0Perhaps we will make better \u2014 not necessarily safer \u2014 choices if we consider consciously the trade-offs we already make.<\/p>\n

Would you trade years of life for happiness? \u00a0Chances are excellent that you already do.<\/p>\n

Illustration:\u00a0Happiness and Longevity (Fu Shou). \u00a0Calligraphy by Tao Gui, Ming dynasty (1547), China.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted from “Sacramento Street Psychiatry“<\/p>\n

The New York Times blog called “Well” recently asked: “Will Olympic Athletes Dope if They Know It Might Kill Them?” The answer is surprisingly clear: Many would if they could. In bi-annual surveys conducted from 1982 to 1995, researcher Bob Goldman asked elite athletes whether they would take a drug […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[35,36,33],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-nature","tag-happiness","tag-risk","tag-sacramento-street-psychiatry","odd"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}