People who spend more of their day having substantive discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, a new study found.

The New York Times reports:

“We found this so interesting, because it could have gone the other way — it could have been, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ — as long as you surf on the shallow level of life you’re happy, and if you go into the existential depths you’ll be unhappy,” Dr. Mehl said.

But, he proposed, substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people.

So as I write the House just approved the health care bill, and we could have a deep discussion about whether this was a good or bad thing — and we have gone into this from both sides on Tikkun Daily: e.g. Eli Zaretsky here:

Of course the bill will accomplish good, and this needs to be recognized. It will extend coverage and it will prevent some insurance company abuses. However, the true meaning of the bill lies not in the steps it takes toward universal coverage and toward reform, but rather in the meaning it assigns to those steps, namely cost control. Rather than a future in which liberals expand coverage further, the bill marks the deepening of the divide between the “two Americas,” and a decisive step toward abandoning long-standing ideals of equality.

And Laurel Reichelt here.

The question facing the progressive community after the passage of the dubious Senate HCR Bill is, “Where do we go from here?” Do we kill the bill and start over? Or do we pass something and come back for more? This compendium available at Salon.com summarizes the opinions of most of the wonks including my favorite, Paul Krugman. Several days ago, Democracy Now aired a great discussion between former-Aetna-exec-turned-HCR-advocate Wendell Potter and FDL health policy analyst Jon Walker entitled Kill the Bill or Support Passage. Like Krugman, Potter argued that failure to pass a health care reform bill now, while the Dems have a clear majority in Congress, will cripple reform efforts for decades.

There were huge demonstrations for immigration reform in DC, and we could have and I hope will have many deep discussions about that.

Tikkun is nothing if not deep discussions.  So it’s nice to know that it has now been determined that this is helping the general happiness. Read Tikkun regularly, our Current Thinking pages and Tikkun Daily, and then — this is crucial — talk the ideas over face to face with your partner, child, uncle, neighbor, coworker, fellow commuter, and watch your happiness level rise.

Next they’ll work out that actually doing something about what’s wrong in the world, based on these deep discussions, helps your happiness level too.