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Oh, Baby!
Well-meaning but basically clueless friends assume I’m not a happy person. You’d think that would be due to my fondness for sarcasm and snark, but instead their opinion of my state of mind is thanks to my not enjoying the wonders of being a parent. That’d be fine and could easily be filed under Things Breeders Just Don’t Get if not for my gay friends who have decided to have rug rats of their own. I’m all for marriage equality, but that doesn’t mean we have to emulate everything that straight people do. We’re supposed to be smarter than that.
But it seems ever since gay celebrity couples started having designer babies, it’s the thing to do. I guess for those who need a mate to complete them, a handful of offspring means they’ll be even more fulfilled. Even if that does mean being surrounded by full diapers. I get the procreation thing, but it’s the journey and not the destination that makes me happy. Am I missing something here? Are children the path to true happiness? Even if you are not a fan of Sunee Plaza?
Yup, smells like science to me.
It’s always nice when the scientific community backs up one of your cherished beliefs. Not that if you live in Tennessee you’d know anything about that. Thanks to a new study by Carsten Grimm from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, we now know having kids really isn’t all that. At least when it comes to being happy. In fact, most people rated getting drunk higher on their personal happiness scale than they did having kids. Though I suspect the latter could easily lead to the need of the former.
Making babies ranks high on the scale of things that make you happy. Having a baby, not so much.
Grimm, a psychology researcher with the university asked study participants to rank 30 typical activities in terms of four different qualities: pleasure, meaning, engagement, and happiness. Sex came out on top in terms of happiness. Even among bottoms. Caring for the brats they mistakenly had came in at #5. Even God brought more people happiness; meditating and religion came in at the #4 spot.
“Psychologists have proposed that individuals may seek to increase their well-being through three main behavioral orientations; via pleasure, via engagement, and via meaning,” says Grimm. “Endorsing pleasure as a way to happiness means you enjoy ‘eating dessert first’ or you focus on feeling good and enjoying sensory pleasures,” he added. “Engagement is what you experience when you’re totally absorbed in what you’re doing; either skiing down a hill or being immersed in your work. People call this experience a state of ‘flow’ and this may be a dominant orientation to happiness for some people.”
Whether your personal pursuit of happiness is through pleasure, engagement, or a life filled with meaning, study participants all agreed on one thing: sex is the way to go. Making love topped all four lists. And I’d agree. I’ve had a lot of meaningful sex in my life. And it always puts a smile on my face.
But not all activities that bring you pleasure also score high on the other scales. For example, using Facebook ranked 30th in terms of meaning. Though I suppose if you are stroking it over a picture you saw on Facebook that would raise its overall score. And while sex is the end all regardless of its basis in pursuits, if you had to resort to texting to get laid your overall happiness level suffers; it came in as the fifth worst-ranked activity in both meaning and engagement.
Happiness defined.
The trick says Grimm is to do those things that bring you the greatest amount of happiness, engagement, and meaning in order to have a life of fulfillment. “Those who tend to be high on all orientations to happiness not only score high on life satisfaction, they also tend to have higher experiences of pleasure, meaning, engagement and happiness in their daily lives. This means that being able to seek happiness in different ways may enrich your everyday experience and increase your overall well-being,” he says.
Not that science has all of the answers. The pursuit of happiness is what Pattaya sexpats are all about. Even if they do tend to be a miserable lot. But then according to Grimm, that’s because while pleasure is near and dear to their hearts, activities with meaning and those that engage are of little interest. Unless it’s about meaning to engage a moneyboy at the beach. Still, even if not living a fulfilled life, the sexpat population should be happy; they do tend to fully engage in the top nine activities that the majority of Grimm’s study participants indicated as bringing them happiness:
1: Sex: It’s what puts the Pattaya in sexpat.
2: Drinking Alcohol: Hello?
3: Volunteering: Did you ever wonder why there are so many children-related ‘charities’ indulged in by Pattaya’s sexpat population? (See #1 and #5.)
4: Meditating or Prayer: And what sexpat doesn’t pray daily that the $20 his budget allows will get him both drunk and laid?
5: Caring For or Playing with Children: Isn’t that what Sunee Plaza is all about?
6: Listening to Music: Especially when accompanied by naked dancing boys.
7: Socializing: Or as Pattaya Sexpats refer to it: drinking.
8: Hobbies: See #1, #2, and #3.
9: Shopping: See #1.
Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
Who Said Money Can’t Buy Happiness?
Safer Sex For Sexpats
When Size Matters
Nice writing as always!
I started reading “cruise critic” lately. I am surprised by how obsessed some posters are about drink prices, drink menus, what’s covered on different drink packages, drink package “secrets” to get around some rules, how much to tip bartenders & servers, etc. Some bartenders on the ships tell me stories about customers that drink like fish. Last cruise, they told me of one old guy who ordered two double-shot Bloody Mary’s every morning in the “elite” lounge. I didn’t believe it, until I heard the guy place his order a few mornings later. Well, I guess he is “happy” plastered all day long until the evening “elite” happy hour for more free booze.
By the way, I think the following terms should be repeated frequently until the search engines raise them to first place as with “santorum” and until they become commonly used synonyms:
Pattaya = Shitsville
Pattaya sexpat = Sunee Pedo Defense League
Have a nice day! 😉
I do have to give you credit for coining Sunee Pedo Defense League Mitch. Maybe Jabba will use it to rename his board.
I can only agree with you. As much as I’m all for everyone’s and anyone’s right to have children, I’m quite content with visiting my adorable nephews every now and then, being able to make an exit whenever it’s getting too much. For me, having kids on my own is quite hard to imagine.
The more I read about ‘Sunee Plaza’, the more this place and its patrons disgust me. What you’ve written a while ago is so true, those who’re in denial and playing a role in harboring or tolerating child molesters in their community — either intentionally or naively — lack any sense of responsibility and decency. It’s pointless to try argue with these fools, however, they don’t respond well to common sense arguments.
Yup. I love getting my brothers’ kids all riled up and then leaving them for their parents to deal with!
As for Sunee and as Mitch puts it, the Sunee Pedo Defense League, I noticed your attempt to inject some logic and right-thinking into the debate, for all the good it did. But at least you didn’t get banned. Or did you?
🙂
Nope, but if I ever do get banned on any of these boards, most likely this topic will be the reason for my ‘downfall’. I’m a very relaxed person nowadays, and there are very few issues that still have the potential to trigger a hissy fit in me. This is one of them.
I like Mitch’s term a lot. It sounds so harmless, almost innocent, and that’s pretty much exactly the point, because the members of this league underestimate how harmful even a mere belittlement, let alone the denial, of the child molester infestation of Pattaya’s gay community is.
Yeah I do have to compliment you for remaining so damn civil, maybe doing so even has an effect on a few readers or at least makes them rethink what they are doing. I like Mitch’s term too . . . in fact I feel a post coming on!
🙂
First of all I love the pictures of this article, although the first three for a completely different reason than the last one.
Second I think whatever research they are doing it all comes back to the fulfillment of needs. You might say that sex is a very important need for some people (ok most), but for other there may be other thing like changing dippers or playing with kids (the normal way not the Pattaya way).
However what I always miss in these studies is the factor knowledge and envy. Beati pauperes spiritu – ignorance is a blessing; if you live in the poorest circumstances and know that there is no way out and nothing beyond you can still be happy with what you got, the other way round even rich people can be completely unhappy because they always think of what could be better (and there always is something better). This actually leads to the envy problem: You will never be happy if you cannot accept that there are limits for each of us in regards what we can achieve and what not. I know everyone dreams of the big jackpot or the invention that will bring him a fortune but in reality this is not going to happen and the sooner you can accept that there will be people richer than you the sooner you can be happy by achieving your realistic goals.
Wise words Dekar. Amazing how many people never learn having the latest iPhone is never gonna bring them happiness, no matter how many and how soon they’ve traded in their old on for the model that just got released. Happiness is inside of you, when you are at peace with yourself and with your life – whatever those circumstances may be – there is no need for keeping up with the Joneses.