An (as yet unfinished) collection of essays exploring the question of how to get the most out of life.

As you read these essays keep in mind they are just that -- essays. They reflect my personal views derived from what I have experienced, observed, and read. I have strived for accuracy but, since this is not a scholarly or academic endeavor, felt no need to footnote. My objective is only to express my opinion and stimulate thought.

Three out of four Americans are "happy" or "very happy." That's not bad. There are other nations with higher happiness levels, which suggests there is room for improvement. But what's a few percentage points? They may just reflect societal and cultural differences. Perhaps Americans are as happy as they can expect to be given the nature of their country and the current state of the world.

But what if happiness levels can be increased? Should that be an objective? It has an intuitive appeal. Every individual wants to be happy. And surely the country would benefit if more of its citizens and residents were happier. I'm not convinced of the latter. It assumes there is no societal value to dissatisfaction and unhappiness. A healthy society needs a balance between following tradition and trying new things. Unhappiness can be an incentive to challenge the status quo and initiate positive change.

For example, consider the consequences of eliminating the unhappiest occupational group in the U.S. -- lawyers. (Disclosure: I am a lawyer.) Law is the only profession, argues psychologist Martin Seligman, that rewards pessimism. Lawyers are trained to identify and guard against negative possibilities (e.g., flaws, misrepresentations, worst case scenerios) in order to protect their clients from harm. A study of law students found that those who were pessimists outperformed optimists on traditional achievement measures. In other words, the best lawyers are the most pessimistic.

Pessimists are typically unhappy and unhealthy. Lawyers fit the stereotype. They suffer disproportionately from depression, anxiety, hostility, paranoia, social alienation and isolation, obsessive-compulsiveness, and interpersonal insensitivity. They are more prone to divorce, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, and stress related illnesses like hypertension, heart attacks, and strokes. Some estimate the pessimistic nature of lawyers shortens their life expectancy by six to nine years.

Would the United States be better off without all its unhappy lawyers? The leaders and decision makers of all three branches of the federal and state governments are predominately lawyers. The U.S. legal system, while not perfect, is still considered the best in the world. One of the reasons the U.S. has so many lawyers is because Americans have so many rights, rights that lawyers help them exercise and protect. For example, it was the happy majority (in both the north and the south) that condoned and perpetuated racial segregation; it was the unhappy minority, represented by lawyers, who challenged the practice in court and eventually convinced judges (mostly former lawyers) that segregation violated the right to equal protection guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. On this 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, it seems most agree the country is better as a result. Kill all the lawyers (which, I hasten to note, is unnecessary since we die prematurely) and the U.S. would be a very different nation, perhaps better in some ways but, I suspect, worse off overall.

Lawyers are not the only unhappy people who benefit society. Some of the greatest works of art, music, and literature have been created by very unhappy, even tormented, souls. How ironic that a miserable few can bring so much pleasure and enlightenment to so many.

Researchers have identified four personality traits that are strongly associated with happy people: extraversion, a feeling of being in control of one's life, high self-esteem, and optimism. Although these seem like, and certainly can be, positive characteristics, they have a downside. For example, people with high self-esteem tend to accept the credit for good results but blame others for their failures and problems. Taking undeserved credit and refusing to accept personal responsibility may be a good coping mechanism which allows one to feel happier, but in some instances it can do more harm than good, to both the individual and society. The same is true for optimism. Optimists often have unrealistic expectations. They may therefore fail to take sensible precautions to protect themselves and others from the consequences of their actions and become disillusioned and frustrated when reality falls short of their romanticized dreams.

Take President George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq War. Bush (who is not a lawyer) has high self-esteem, is an optimist, and disdains lawyers. When he ordered the invasion of Iraq, his optimistic view was that the Iraqi people would welcome American troops as liberators and peacefully form a model democratic government that would act as a catalyst and transform the political landscape of the Middle East. He dismissed the opinions of the pessimists who suggested the reality might be quite different from his vision. As a result, he failed to prepare for problems that occurred, problems that many had anticipated. Because of his high self-esteem, he refused to accept personal responsibility for the difficulties that were encountered or admit he made any mistakes. This inhibited his ability to take timely corrective action. President Bush may be a happy optimist but the country would have been better off if he had heeded the advice of unhappy pessimists (including those military lawyers who were so bothered by the interrogation techniques approved for use on Iraqi and Afghan prisoners that they went outside their chain of command when their objections were ignored and asked the New York City Bar Association for help in getting the civilian policy makers to listen to their concerns).

Of course, pessimists can be as unrealistic as optimists. For example, they tend to blame themselves for things that are not their fault, feel they have less control over their lives than they actually have, and see bad events as pervasive and permanent instead of isolated and temporary. But they perform a vital function. Their dark pessimism provides an essential counterpoint to blind optimism.

Americans, Winston Churchill once observed, have a tendency to think grandly but not necessarily carefully. That has the ring of truth and highlights the importance of a balanced perspective. Since all individuals are biased to some degree, a society needs people with opposing viewpoints to attain balance. And that gives rise to a paradox: it means that optimists need pessimists, liberals need conservatives, the religious need the secular, and a critical mass of unhappy individuals is needed for a happy society.

The paradox of unhappiness applies at the individual level as well. The Greek philospher Epicurus defined a happy life as a life where pleasure is maximized and pain is minimized. I agree that, in an ideal world, there are some pains that no one should have to suffer. But I disagree with Epicurus' basic premise. I think happiness and unhappiness are inextricably interrelated and unhappy experiences (assuming they are dealt with in a healthy manner) are necessary to maximize happiness. I am not proposing that the secret of happiness is to become a masochist. However, I am suggesting that taking every possible measure to avoid or minimize painful, uncomfortable, and other unhappy experiences can have the paradoxical effect of reducing the degree of happiness one is able to achieve.

Emotional pain is a fact of life and cannot be totally avoided. When it does occur, the reaction of many is to try and supress it. The problem with that approach is that pain and pleasure, sadness and happiness, share a common denominator, so supressing the former also supresses the latter. Barriers erected to protect oneself from emotional pain also restrict one's opportunity and capacity to experience joy. Conversely, the more a person is open to feeling unhappiness, the more s/he is also open to feeling happiness. The downs in life are lower, but they pass more quickly, and the ups are higher.

But what about emotional pain that can be avoided? Does it make sense to do so? Not necessarily. One can avoid the pain of losing a loved one by not falling in love. But the tradeoff is foregoing all the pleasures that arise from a loving relationship. To find happiness, one must be willing to risk unhappiness. Finding love involves a risk of rejection. Developing intimacy requires being open and extending trust and risking betrayal. Enjoying the wonders of nature means risking discomfort. Achieving success comes at the risk of failure. Even doing the right thing entails some risk of disapproval.

The desire to avoid pain discourages risk taking. Playing it safe limits exposure to loss but also limits potential rewards. The more confidence a person has in his or her ability to handle a possible loss, the more willing s/he is to risk it. Experience is a way to develop that confidence. Unhappy life events provide the opportunity to develop healthy coping mechanisms. Successfully dealing with unhappy events reduces apprehension about future ones. That's not to say they will feel less bad. But it is through experience that one learns the bad can be endured and life can be as good, or even better, in the aftermath. That knowledge increases one's willingness to risk unhappiness in the pursuit of happiness, which increases the chance of hitting the jackpot.

Experience also provides a standard of comparison. Happiness is relative. How we feel about life events depends upon what we are comparing them to. A sunny, pleasant day in a perpetually sunny and pleasant climate is just another day. A sunny, pleasant day after weeks of stormy, cold weather is an absolute delight, a cause for celebration. Similarly, death, heartbreak, failure, danger, discomfort, and deprivation enhance one's appreciation of life, love, success, security, comfort, and abundance.

If it sounds like I am suggesting that the way to achieve happiness is to experience unhappiness, I am, at least to a certain extent. That's the paradox of unhappiness at the individual level. A person who has experienced and successfully coped with unhappiness will feel happier with what s/he has, be better able to deal with the inevitable bumps on the road of life, have a more accurate perception of what is important in life, and be more inclined to take the risks and make the effort necessary to get them.

While in my early 20s, I experienced the following within an 18 month period: My wife left me for another man and, in violation of a court order, took our two year old son with her to another state. I did not see my son again for 14 years. I almost died as a result of an allergic reaction to a bee sting. The doctor's first words to me when I regained awareness after two days of oblivion were: "We didn't know if you were going to make it." The Vietnam War was being waged and I was drafted into the military. Although I eventually got a medical deferment (because of my allergy to bee stings -- funny how life sometimes plays out), friends who went to Vietnam were killed. My father was diagnosed with cancer and died a month later at age 53, just six months before his planned retirement date.

I began partying and drinking a lot, mostly to numb the grief and fear but partly to celebrate being alive, never out of control but close enough to the edge that (I subsequently learned) my mother and friends were concerned. I emerged from my funk a very different person. Ironically, working through this period of unhappiness provided me with insights about what I needed to be happy.

From that point on, it's never taken much to make me happy. I wake up each morning, glad just to be alive. This is not, in my mind, a pessimistic view. Just the opposite, it is an incentive to experience life to the fullest and appreciate all it has to offer. This does not mean I live each day like there will be no tomorrow -- because in all likelihood there will be a tomorrow and I will be around to reap the benefits and suffer the consequences of what I did yesterday. What it does mean is that I try to make each day count so that if I died tomorrow I would have no major regrets.

I can identify eight incidents in my life, beside my allergic reaction to the bee sting, when I could easily have died. The first occurred in seventh grade when I almost drowned. The most recent occurred less than two years ago when I stopped breathing while recovering from surgery and had to be resuscitated. None of the incidents are dramatic tales of survival in which I battled the odds and prevailed. They are just footnotes in my life -- moments that ended shortly after they began; brief periods of time in which my life hung in the balance and the outcome was in the hands of fate. But death is just as final whether dramatic or not, and coming close to death in any form changes one's perspective about life. And from my perspective, many of the things Americans seem convinced are essential to happiness -- a fancy new car, a large luxurious house, designer clothes, medical procedures to restore one's youthful appearance, the latest toys and electronic gizmos, fame, fortune, power, and status, to name a few -- are inconsequential.