More recent and rigorous studies have yielded results that getting married or getting a raise or a new house all give a boost to our happiness, but eventually we drop to levels near where we were before. By contrast, happiness dips and then rebounds after people lose a limb, their sight or even - though the data is more conflicting here - a loved one. ( I Can't believe the losing loved one part!)
People tend to overestimate the amount of emotional damage a disable life will bring, regularly underestimate the emotional harm that mental health problems cause. Studies shows people are actually better at adapting to physical disabilities than to mental illness or chronic pain. (For this I can understand, if it is only one-time loss, people has the ability to adpat themselves into new life; But if it is chronic torture, people have to deal with it daily, it is more sufferring. That's why there is an old saying in chinese: 久病床前无孝子)
And healthy people are so bad at predicting how they'll emotionally react to being gravely ill, living wills that they make when healthy often don't reflect their wishes when they actually become sick. ( That means decision should be changed when situation is changed. The inconsistency should be understandable and allowable. Always give others and yourself second chance, give the dicsions second thought. Don't rush, don't push.)
The surprising finding bring changes into the following realms:
- Law
- Ethically fraught issues like end-of-life care
- Policy-making
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