The Long and Short of It

NYT's blog: ``... One of the insights of modern happiness research is that these are questions we often don’t have to answer. While happiness can clash with other ideals, the surprising finding is how often they go together. One usually doesn’t have to decide, for instance, whether to be happy or to be good. We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good life, a life with sustained relationships, challenging work, and connections to community. You can be happy Socrates. But what about short-term pleasures, like eating cake, drinking beer, or having sex? ...''