Is Happiness a Warm Blanket?

Here are some picked and chosen results of a 2006 poll on Happiness conducted by the Pew Research Center and reported by today’s page of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Tear-a-Page-a-Day Calendar:

38% of the people over 65 are happy. 28% under 65 are.
43% of married people are happy; 24% singles are.
36% of parents; 29% childless.

Maybe some of the categories overlay each other – For instance, probably “single” and childless are the same people – they got counted twice.

But maybe something not told is the real reason for all the happiness or unhappiness in each group - an unnoticed variable: Maybe all the unhappy filled out their questionnaire from a prison cell; or maybe what was not noted that 30% dwell on their own death, which would make them unhappy. Maybe all the happy people are positive dreamers who have not yet faced reality … or, who knows, maybe all the happy people have a dogs or a warm blankets.