Waldinger told me that there were three basic types of happiness. In fact, during particularly tense sporting events I find it difficult to eat or drink, as my body is also entirely devoted to the task of the game.īut let’s be clear: The joy of a college football game is not the same as the joy of getting married or having a child. During the football game, my mind never left the scene.
Some people describe it when they’re skiing down a ski slope where you just have to be totally into going down that slope or you’ll crash, right? And there’s something about that flow that’s very satisfying.” “Some people describe it when they’re playing a musical instrument. Both can induce a state called “flow,” which is when you’re fully absorbed and not thinking about anything else. He said that following sports can be as emotionally and physically engaging as watching a thriller or horror movie. He told me that what I was feeling wasn’t an illusion. Waldinger has thought a lot about the subject of human happiness and gave a TEDx Talk on the subject in 2015 that has been viewed more than 41 million times. He directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a longitudinal study that has tracked the physical and mental health of a group of American men for more than 80 years. I put the question to Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School. And technically, my life has not materially changed as a result of it. I wonder, though: Is this happiness - the happiness of any fan after a sports victory of such magnitude - is it real? After all, I didn’t actually do anything to help Michigan win. “I would often sit there and think to myself, ‘I’ve got a beautiful family, and I’ve got three healthy children.’” Network host Rich Eisen told me that during the game he felt so personally involved that he turned to his wife and asked, “Why does this mean so much to me?” He said that during previous games, when Michigan was losing to Ohio State, he would have to force himself to take stock of what was good in his life. A fellow Michigan graduate and current N.F.L. I am, of course, not the only one who felt this way. When the game ended, and Michigan had won, I felt as if I had won, too, from hundreds of miles away. But I was so invested in the action that my heart-rate tracker thought I was working out. And I watched it from my warm and cozy apartment, rather than in the snowy stands of Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. Obviously, as I am not a member of the Michigan football team, I did not play a single snap of that game. What’s the word for that? I have never felt anything like it before. This was an event that had no real impact on my life, and yet it has lifted me to new heights of joy like a hot-air balloon. This win forced me to look up new words for “happiness,” but nothing can capture it. And for the first time in 10 years, we beat our biggest rival in the biggest and most-watched college football game of the season. 27, the Michigan Wolverines football team defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes, 42-27.
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