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What is happiness? Are you happier when you're sitting on the couch watching a funny movie? Or are you happier when you're working in the hot sun, weeding your garden? Most people would say the first one is "happier." But then what emotion do you experience when your garden looks great because of the work you did?
Some of the articles are blatant about selectively applying the word "happy." They point out that day to day life as a parent is "less happy" because each day is harder work, more stressful, more expensive, has less sleep etc than not having a kid. But then they'll point (as you do) that parents feel a deep and satisfying love of their kids. But they won't relate that to "happiness" for some reason...maybe because it complicates the simplistic storyline for the article.
I'm happy when I'm running fun Class III. I'm also happy when I've run a challenging Class V. They're different kinds of happiness though. I guess if I only cared about the first kind I could make an argument that Class III boaters are more happy than Class V boaters. That's pretty much the angle these kinds of stories take.
Homer: "Bart, I'm not mad. If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing! You just stick that guitar in the closet next to your shortwave radio, your karate outfit and your unicycle and we'll go inside and watch TV."
Bart: "What's on?"
Homer: "It doesn't matter." |
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This is the essence of my disagreement with this (oft-repeated) story New 
BoaterTalk 
