It's not your fault if you're unhappy – and it won't make you sick either | Ruth Whippman

New research shows that unhappy and stressed people are no more likely to succumb to ill-health or premature death than their cheerier counterparts

The happiness industry - now contracted to consult with everyone from corporate America to the US military - thinks your well-being is a matter of individual effort and personal responsibility. This is the American dream applied to the soul: the faith that if we put in enough emotional elbow grease, if we read enough self-help books and practice mindfulness and think positive and meditate and keep a gratitude journal, then we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps from misery to joy.

A thousand inspirational virtual photo-cards declare that 'happiness is a choice.' Even the dictionary agrees. Although the word happiness originally came from the Middle English word "hap", meaning chance or good luck (think 'happenstance' or 'perhaps'), any idea that our own wellbeing may be outside of our direct control has been firmly squashed. Merriam Webster's online dictionary now declares that the old definition of the word happiness as "good fortune" has become obsolete.