The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything

6

A final lesson from the convent

A few years ago a group of researchers at the University of Kentucky stumbled upon pure academic gold: cardboard boxes stashed away and full of handwritten autobiographies written by nuns as they joined US convents in the 1930s and ’40s. So the researchers read these autobiographies and began sorting them into piles based on how positive the attitude and emotion were in each one.

Here are a couple that show the difference between low and high positive emotion:

Sister 1: I was born on September 26, 1909, the eldest of seven children, five girls and two boys. My candidate year was spent in the Motherhouse, teaching Chemistry and Second Year Latin at Notre Dame Institute. With God’s grace, I intend to do my best for our Order, for the spread of religion, and for my personal sanctification.

Sister 2: God started my life off well by bestowing upon me a grace of inestimable value. The past year which I have spent as a candidate studying at Notre Dame College has been a very happy one. Now I look forward with eager joy to receiving the Holy Habit of Our Lady and to a life of union with Love Divine.

Pretty different, aren’t they?

Turns out it was easy for the researchers to categorize the autobiographies into four “levels of happiness” seventy years later and excitedly rub their hands together, squeal nerdy academic researcher squeals, and compare those dusty old autobiographies with how well the nuns were doing today.

Now, keep in mind the best thing about studying nuns is that all the difficult, hard-to-control variables were controlled. None of them smoked, drank, had sex, got married, or had kids . . . ever! They even lived in the same cities, ate the same foods, and wore the same clothes. (Who’s doing a load of whites? Nobody! Ever!)

Therefore, their positive attitude seventy years ago was the prime indicator of how long they lived.

That’s why this study is so powerful.

And guess what the researchers found out?

Revolutionary findings that sent academic circles buzzing. Staggering takeaways about the power of starting with a positive lens in your life. They published the results and called them “Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity: Findings from the Nun Study.”

Here’s what they found:

The happiest nuns lived ten years longer than the least happy nuns.

By age eighty, the most happy group had lost only 25% of its population, whereas the least happy group had lost 60%.

54% of the most happy nuns reached the age of ninety-four, compared to 15% of the least happy nuns.

The Nun Study shows an incredibly strong link between how happy you are today and how long you’re going to live. And it’s not just length, either! Think of it: You will be happier through all those years, too.

Happy people don’t have the best of everything.

They make the best of everything.

Be happy first.