Busyness..

 

Our jobs can provide us with a sense of competence, which contributes to wellbeing. Researchers have demonstrated not only that labor leads to validation but that, when these feelings are threatened, we're particularly drawn to activities that require effort – often some form of work – because these demonstrate our ability to shape our environment, confirming our identities as competent individuals.

Work even seems to make us happier in circumstances when we'd rather opt for leisure. This was demonstrated by a series of clever experiments in which participants had the option to be idle (waiting in a room for 15 minutes for an experiment to start) or to be busy (walking for 15 minutes to another venue to participate in an experiment).

Yet the researchers found that those who'd spent 15 minutes walking ended up significantly happier than those who'd spent 15 minutes waiting – no matter whether they'd had a choice or a chocolate or neither. In other words, busyness contributes to happiness even when you think you'd prefer to be idle. Animals seem to get this instinctively: in experiments, most would rather work for food than get it for free.

But even in the realm of leisure, our unconscious orientation towards busyness lurks in the background. A recent study has suggested that there really is such a thing as too much free time and that our subjective wellbeing actually begins to drop if we have more than five hours of it in a day. Whiling away effortless days on the beach doesn't seem to be the key to long-term happiness.

Just a "leisure" thought.