Laura (the Sarchasm) posted a study that conservatives are generally happier people than liberals. In all my years, I’ve known this to be pretty much true. Sure, there are happy liberals and unhappy conservatives, but generally speaking…
The study has a lot of premises and explanations why this is so. You can read into it what you like. The link is in her article if you want to read it and it’s a short and easy read. It also includes percentages too.
From my experiences, I’ve seen that liberals see injustice everywhere and want to change too much. Conservatives on the other hand roll with the punches in life and only want to fix a few things. I’ve always said that if you want to change too much, you will fail, become disillusioned and cynical, and end up not accomplishing anything.
The press likes to make fun of us one or two issue people, but guess what? We’re effective. Don’t try to change the world. Just pick your battles. Find the one or two things that you want to work on and just do that. You will find that if you focus on one or two things, you will be a heck of a lot more effective.
Imagine if bad drivers drove you nuts and you beat up everyone that cuts you off. You’d never get home. You’d be beating someone up every other minute. That’s how I see liberals. The whole world drives them nuts and they’re unhappy because they see injustice everywhere.
I’m not at all denying there is injustice out there. I gave Laura the example of my Aunt. She knows sports more than any man you’ll ever meet and has just as much if not more charisma than 99% of the sports announcers on TV. But she’s a woman. Had she been a man, she’d have sports networks knocking down doors to hire her. Is it fair? No. Is it something I lose sleep over every night? No.
Learn what works, then do it. You can see the world as unfair and be unhappy or you can see what’s right with the world and tweak a thing or two that’s wrong. I think the latter is a lot more effective and also less likely to burn out.
The other thing with liberals - I’ve found that liberals tend to find what they disagree with you about and argue it over and over and over again, then argue it some more. Then the next day, they’ll bring it up again. No, not all liberals do this, but I’m using a stereotype that has some truth to it. Me on the other hand, I’ll try to find something I agree with you. I don’t care about changing your viewpoint to mine. If I like you, I like you and accept we have our differences. You can be Left-wing, Right-wing, Middle-wing, Christian, Muslim, Pagan, Atheist, Gay, Straight, Brown, Green, Orange, Male, Female, Narnian, or whatever. If you’re cool to me, I like you and just accept you as is.
I like keeping it simple. Liberals tend to make things complicated. Is that because conservatives are dumb? Hardly. It may be though because we’re more secure. And that may be why we’re happier.
Anyways, before you get mad at me, check out the study. I’m just saying what I’ve experienced. As I’ve said, I’ve known happy Liberals and miserable Conservatives. But generally speaking, the study has truth to it.
