Tall people are happy

Entrepreneurs are more stressed, but happier than other workers. People who like their home cities report better health. Republicans are bummed about President Barack Obama's reelection. Middle-age puts you at the biggest risk of being fat.

Filed under: Family Finances, Shopping, Travel, Weird & Wonderful

Low expectations for a happy future might actually propel you into old age. Compared with their counterparts with a sunnier outlook, older Germans who are more pessimistic tend to live longer, healthier lives, a group of researchers found.

Physical pain is a fairly common occurrence in life, so I suppose everyone walks around figuring it’s a sensation they’re familiar with. But something I learned over this past week is that there was a whole new level of pain far beyond anything I’d previously experienced. In my case, it was caused by a small cyst growing beneath one of my wisdom teeth that was pressing on a nerve in my jaw. And, fortunately, it was easy for an oral surgeon to remove. But it hurt a lot while it lasted, and the experience was terrible.

Roger Lewis makes the case in The Washington Post for taller buildings in DC. I agree with what he says, though I think he’s far too ginger about calling for taller buildings in the existing central business district. Most people seem to think the downtown height limit has something to do with the Capitol Dome. So what if we replaced the current 130 foot limit with something closer to the actual 288 foot Capitol building? Say we let people go up to 260 feet?

By James Kwak

By Dylan Matthews Ezra already highlighted Jennifer Senior's great New York Magazine piece on happiness and parenting, but I wanted to add a point on this section: