The Components of Well-Being

For this post I am going to be considering sections of the paper 'Who is Happy?' by Myers and Diener. Download the paper from here.

"If good feelings exclude bad feelings at the same moment in time then the more time one spends up the less time one spends down. Thus the frequencies of good and bad moods are inversely related..."

This presupposes that the opposite of 'up' is 'down' and these are the only two states.

Thus this is a false dilemma.

One can be neither happy nor unhappy. A state of contentment, or absence of discontentment. I am not particularly happy whilst writing this; neither am I unhappy.

The paper states that: "SWB is defined by three correlated but distinct factors: the relative presence of positive affect; absence of negative effect and satisfaction with life"

It is not the absence of negative effect but the superiority of the positive effect that is improtant. The overall state of mind is the sum total of, to assume otherwise would suggest a bliss-ful state is easily achievable.