~ Drama in the Headline

Today I posted a link to an article on happiness (see the attached link) to which I made the comment that the story was incomplete as a religious article. A little later I received a reply that I should “make it complete in a blog.” This lead me to read more widely
I BEEN HIGHJACKED. Earlier today, earlier again even, I had been thinking about how an old saying “the devil is in the detail” might be out of date today. It occurred to me that the statement should now be “the drama is in the headline.
My post had been about a report from a psychology study and was written from a secular humanist position and there seemed little if any input from “any form of spirituality” let alone Christian, again in fairness this may have been not down to the researchers or the study.
This study looked at the following
1) Marry well:
2) Focus on the family:
3) Go to church:
4) Work, but not too much (or too little):
5) Get social, and get moving:
It was, to be fair an apparently long term study but the article was less than comprehensive in the findings,
The fact of the matter is that the original article paid scant attention to these elements aside from marrying well and the lesser importance of financial security and work satisfaction. This is the combined thrust of this blog. Two Headlines that I looked at were “Happiness all about life choice” and “Don’t Worry : ...” Both show only limited value to the subject of the articles.
For the Christian, most of us find that Christ Jesus is a large part of our happy state. Many of us take it further a lot of the time and lock in bible verses such as Pauls “In all things I have learnt to be content.” Many of us develop an entire arsenal of verses to use to validate the state of our emotional environment.
"The key thing is that life events good and bad do shape happiness over long periods," said Andrew Oswald, a professor of behavioural science at the University of Warwick "We are, in part, the product of our experiences. It's not all born into us."
There is a greater truth in this article, at least the latter article that our social environment does contribute to our overall happiness. Sometimes we Christians tend to discount this truth and the attendant truth that all we have comes from God, and we attribute our happiness to the master’s touch.
I hope that this was what you were after W, I was wrong in my reading of the article which was obviously tainted by its own agenda, and it is a salutary warning when we do not have time to read the drama in the headline. By the way this also applies to the reading of Christian material which has its own agenda and sub strata to develop.