From the NY Times

[Guest guest]

Maureen Dowd is my favorite editorialist at the Times. Here is a

portion of her editorial today that seemed apropos to what I posted

earlier (I've removed the political portion from the beginning but

left the best part ;-):

 

" I was reading the paper, gloating that the puffed-up were not

prospering, when I learned that my glee could kill me. Happiness

could be unhealthy.

 

Articles detailed new research indicating that a pale shade of the

blues may actually be good for women's longevity. A Duke University

study showed that women with mild depression were 40 percent less

likely to die prematurely than women who were not depressed, or than

those with severe depression.

 

This was going to require some tricky calibrations in our personal

lives.

 

Single women can now call off the exhausting and maddening hunt for

Mr. Right. Mr. Right would bring bliss — and an early grave.

 

But women will also have to try harder to avoid Mr. Wrong. Mr. Wrong,

or a series of Mr. Wrongs, would lead to a slough of despond — and an

early grave.

 

For the sake of our health, women will now have to look for Mr.

Slightly Wrong, someone a little annoying, a man who can modify,

qualify, deflect and overturn our happiness just enough so that we

wake up not happy and not sad. We must find men who leave us with a

sense of malaise, but who don't leave us.

 

O.K., I thought, I'll find Mr. Slightly Wrong and live very long.

 

But then I read about the Attack of the Killer Potatoes. Swedish

researchers found out that frying spuds spurs the formation of a

carcinogenic molecule.

 

French fries and potato chips are my major food group. I've downed

enough Pringles to shingle Versailles.

 

Now I was really depressed. My life was rapidly growing shorter.

 

I pondered psychopharmacology: I could lift my unhealthy deep

depression to a restorative mild one by taking an itty bit of Prozac.

 

But then I spied the front page of The Washington Post, which

reported that sugar pills may work just as well as Prozac, Paxil and

Zoloft.

 

So maybe I'll just put sugar in my tea, a beverage that dramatically

reduces the chance of death following a heart attack, according to

another new study this week.

 

Besides, the Duke research implied that anti-depressants would lull

me into not fixing the problems in my life, and thereby shorten my

life by making me too happy.

 

My imperative was clear: I had to dwell on the sad things with silver

linings, at least if I wanted to stick around to keep being

moderately saddened by them.

 

The new research sounds like the old Catskills joke: Restaurant-goers

complain that the food is awful — and the portions are too small.

 

As much as boomers cherish age-attenuating measures, maybe it's

better just to be happy, quickly. In the opera " The Makropoulos Case "

a 16-year-old is given a magic elixir by her father that allows her

to live for three centuries. When we meet her she is a ravishing 337-

year-old opera singer, bored with fawning men and perpetual reruns.

 

That is when she realizes: Brevity is the soul of life. "

[Guest guest]

What an excellent article!! Thanks for sharing...

 

Yvonne