The questions (Happiness Part 4 of 4)

A 20-question survey for readers ... at least partly about happiness. Also, 7 other things worth knowing today.

I have some questions. And while I’m asking, I thought perhaps I’d accomplish 2 or 3 things at once.

Thing #1: Our theme lately has been “happiness,” and after looking through all the great comments the last few days, it might be really interesting if readers would weigh in on an anonymous survey about happiness, along with some demographic info.

• Are we all happiest at 30 or 50 or 70 or 90?

• Are married or unmarried people in this group happier?

• How often does work satisfaction correlate to overall happiness? Does money matter?

• Etc., etc., etc.

Basically, if you’re willing to answer some questions like that anonymously, I can collect it all and report back. I think it will be very interesting.

Thing #2: I’ve put off doing another demographic reader survey for a while, but potential advertisers and partners keep asking me. Also, I’m working on a book proposal, and it would be great to be able to cite some of this kind of demographic information. As long as I’m asking questions, I might as well take the opportunity to ask these questions, too.

Thing #3: I’m always thinking about things like:

• Do people really read the essay at the top each day?

• Do they look forward to the “7 other things” more?

• Is there something I could do that would be smart and would encourage more people to become paid members?

So, I wanted to ask you some questions along those lines, too.

We did a survey on some of this a year ago, but we have significantly more readers now, so it’s time to try once again. Also, the “happiness” component makes it more fun and useful. I think so, anyway.

Thus, there’s no “open comment thread” today. Instead, I hope that you’ll take a few minutes to click through and answer some or all of the questions. There are about 20 of them; mostly multiple choice or “on a scale of 1 to 10…,” with a few optional, short places to provide more context.

Assuming the whole thing isn’t a complete bust, I’ll share the best takeaways starting next week. If you have any trouble clicking through, here’s the link: https://murph.me/2022survey.

(To be transparent, there is theoretically a way to track within this email platform if any individual reader clicks through to the survey. However, there is no way for me to know whether you actually answer any questions—and certainly not to connect answers to anyone’s identity.)

7 other things worth knowing today

• The U.S. will welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. “A full range of pathways will be utilized, including humanitarian parole and immigrant or nonimmigrant visas.” (Politico)

• “The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week fell to its lowest level in 52 years as the U.S. job market continues to show strength in the midst of rising costs and an ongoing virus pandemic.” (AP)

• The inventor of GIFs, who by the way pronounced them so the G sounds like “jiffy,” not “golf,” and came up with the idea when he was an employee at CompuServe in 1987 trying to figure out how to compress images, has died. Stephen Wilhite was 74; he’d had a stroke and then contracted COVID, according to family. (CNN)

• The Applebees Bar + Grill chain is reeling today, after an email supposedly written by one of its executives leaked, suggesting that high gas prices are an advantage for the company, because it means workers will need more hours to pay for basic needs, and will have fewer other opportunities. “Besides hiring employees in at a lower wage to decrease our labor (when able),” the email suggested, “make sure you have a pulse on the morale of your employees.” (Fortune)

• I have some good news and some bad news: The good news is, you’re a multibillionaire! The bad news is, you’re the defendant in the biggest personal tax-evasion case in U.S. history, and the IRS just emptied your wife’s bank account. (Bloomberg)

• Kind of a cool look at St. Peter’s College, which is the Cinderella of the NCAA tournament and has a big game tonight against Purdue. It’s a Jesuit school that caters largely to first-generation college students, and it’s where my father-in-law went to college. It’s also literally on the street where my wife and I used to live. (WashPost)

• Here’s an interesting #$@$%@$#@ study: Neuroscientists found in a study published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology that the act of swearing makes people 8 percent more likely to engage in risky behavior. (Neuroscience News)

OK, don’t forget about the survey!

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