(This is a NY Times article published 11.23.08)

Happy people spend a lot of time socializing, going to church and reading newspapers — but they don’t spend a lot of time watching television, a new study finds.

That’s what unhappy people do.

Although people who describe themselves as happy enjoy watching television, it turns out to be the single activity they engage in less often than unhappy people, said John Robinson, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the author of the study, which appeared in the journal Social Indicators Research.

While most large studies on happiness have focused on the demographic characteristics of happy people — factors like age and marital status — Dr. Robinson and his colleagues tried to identify what activities happy people engage in. The study relied primarily on the responses of 45,000 Americans collected over 35 years by the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey, and on published “time diary” studies recording the daily activities of participants.

“We looked at 8 to 10 activities that happy people engage in, and for each one, the people who did the activities more — visiting others, going to church, all those things — were more happy,” Dr. Robinson said. “TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and happy people did it less.”

But the researchers could not tell whether unhappy people watch more television or whether being glued to the set is what makes people unhappy. “I don’t know that turning off the TV will make you more happy,” Dr. Robinson said.

Still, he said, the data show that people who spend the most time watching television are least happy in the long run.

Since the major predictor of how much time is spent watching television is whether someone works or not, Dr. Robinson added, it’s possible that rising unemployment will lead to more TV time.

One movie I had been waiting to see for some time, “When Did You Last See Your Father?” is a British movie released onto dvd a couple of weeks ago. It’s the story of a son, Blake Morrison, (played by Colin Firth) who tries to come to understand his relationship with his physician father at the end of his father’s life. His father, played by Jim Broadbent, is dying of cancer. His son tries unsuccessfully to talk and reconcile the anger and the distance between the two men as he looks back over his life.

What struck me was that Blake’s relationship is so similar to so many men’s relationships with their father. Blake’s father never accepted his son’s desire to be a writer, and always encouraged him to pursue a career in his own footsteps as a physician. Blake never felt accepted by his father, and never really knew who his father was, even as he tries to find out near the end of his father’s life.

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I spoke today at Paradise Valley Community College about the effects of culture on men, and, specifically, how as men, we are driven my the messages that culture brands into us. 

Being a “real” man in our culture means to “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” and take care of things on your own. You “shouldn’t need to seek out help,” even when you’re depressed.

Could you see how this could create more suffering? By not asking for help, men will spiral deeper into the problems that they should be asking for help for.

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I think one of the reasons that we avoid our feelings, and, consequently, avoid our lives, is because what our minds think they will find when they get to the “darkness” of our emotions is much worse that the actual experience of having our emotional experience – as it comes up in the present moment.

The present moment is an enemy of the mind. The mind continues to elude and avoid the present moment (read any of Eckhart Tolle’s books for more clarification on this). The mind’s fuel for all this is provided early on, when, as children, we learn the tools that we never let go of to navigate issues and problems. We are trying to solve adult problems with children’s tools. They just don’t work.
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My mentor and I were talking about the major themes that men struggle with, and I wanted to share with you some of them. They are not ranked in any particular order.

1. Anger

2. Helplessness

3. Control issues

4. Need for validation, love and praise

5. Emotionality and its expression

Kat (my mentor) and I agreed that control and power underlie so many issues for men. We traced back many issues that men deal with to those issues above, but, more specifically, to issues related to control, power and the lack/loss of those forces. Relationship issues can manifest a plethora of issues that seem to come back to control. So, in your own experience, do you deal with issues of control? If you did, would you admit it, if you even know that you’re dealing with them? Has she told you that you are controlling, and it simply did not register for you? I’d like to hear what you think about that.

Leave a comment about your personal experiences with the issue of control within your relationship.

Wow. I don’t usually post personal issues, and try to leave this space for talking about men’s issues and mental health, but I needed to write a bit about the seismic shift that happened yesterday with the election of Barack Obama as President.

No matter what party affiliation, the idea that America is taking a bold step forward with the first President of African-American decent is overwhelming. To think that this country has, in one day, decisively given hope to millions of Americans who may not have felt part of the American experience is really amazing to me.

I hope that the relations within our country’s borders and outside, both with allies and adversaries, will improve to benefit all people, regardless of race or disposition. I hope that people can feel kindness towards others in a legitimate way, and know that we, as a country, care about people here and around the world. 

Barack Obama signifies this shift, this hope for a new dawning. I hope that he can help to repair damaged foreign relationships, and work with the economies of the world to help themselves grow into a model in the mold of the United States. I wait for every American to have the same sense of well-being and security that many of us enjoy by gaining full health insurance coverage that they can afford and that won’t force them to decide between their health and taking care of their family. I hope that renewable energy – and an abundance of it – can create great jobs, cut dependence on foreign oil in the Middle East, and allow Americans to feel good about contributing to the preservation of their planet.

So, today is also good day for the collective mental health of the United States. It’s a good time to be alive.

- Jason