Fun little article in this past weekend’s NY Times:
Gallup’s answer: he’s a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married, has children, lives in Hawaii, runs his own business and has a household income of more than $120,000 a year. A few phone calls later and …
Meet Alvin Wong. He is a 5-foot-10, 69-year-old, Chinese-American, Kosher-observing Jew, who’s married with children and lives in Honolulu. He runs his own health care management business and earns more than $120,000 a year.
For the “happiness map,” click here.
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4 responses to “Alvin Wong: The Happiest Man in America”
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So interesting! I was looking at the stats, and noted that separated people tend to be in the least happy category.
I'd love for some of MBird's folks to write on that-what to do with a broken heart, especially a heart broken around romantic relational issues. I'm there right now, and the propensity for feelings of loss, hurt, self-blame and hatred, they're all right there on the surface.
It's the ultimate "If only I could have…" place to be. Would love y'all's thoughts.
Hi Doug. Thanks for the tender and touching confession of the place you are in.
Here are some thoughts, in no particular order:
Will you be coming to the NYC conference in a few weeks? This might be some serious Balm In Gilead for you. And we'd love to meet you.
I'd beware of the Christian propensity to try to find neat theological answers to the mystery of love and suffering. We often try to reduce this messy problem to pat verbal formulas, intellectual propositions and chirpy slogans that can domesticate in the conscious mind the terrible problems of life. This really does the Sufferer and the Sinner no favors.
What to do… yeah, it's a mess. One thing I know is that the power of having a Confessor is way underrated. Someone who knows suffering and can listen to you in love and in a place of complete freedom from judgment (Romans 8:1); and who doesn't have an agenda of trying to wring some theological moral out of what you are experiencing.
All that said, you may find this to be a time where you become even closer to the Man of Sorrows and the Friend of Sinners. He was "acquainted with grief." It's one of the reasons that St. Paul and Luther both came to understand that they wanted to know nothing but the Cross. (Crux sola est nostra theologia — the cross alone is our theology.)
Thank you for your kind and gracious words. I'm taking them in. I'd love to get to the NYC conference-not sure how that'll work, but I'd really love to come. Thanks again. Looking to Jesus…
I sure hope you can come. Drop us a line and let us know if you are gonna be there — and if you're not, keep us posted on how things are going.
Fondly, SD