The conversation – Politique en jachères – À la recherche du sens politique perdu – Macron, la French déconnexion – par Claude Patriat Professeur émérite de Science politique, Université de Bourgogne.

« Père, gardez-vous à droite, père, gardez-vous à gauche. »
Philippe le Hardi (Poitiers, 1356)

Ces conseils du fils au père donnés dans une situation désespérée valent-ils pour une armée triomphante, ayant conquis dans un double assaut rapide la tête du pouvoir politique ? La question mérite d’être posée, la réponse incluant et les raisons de la spectaculaire victoire et les conditions d’une action durable.

Une pensée du mouvement

Si le « et droite et gauche » constituaient une prétention œcuménique à rassembler les deux termes dans son seul mouvement, la proposition ne vaudrait guère plus qu’une incantation à portée conjoncturelle. Elle relèverait de l’illusion. Or Emmanuel Macron, en peu de mois, a déjà montré qu’il entendait incarner une transformation en profondeur du fonctionnement politique.

Lui et ses troupes de LREM occupent pleinement l’espace central de la vie politique, tenant à distance les extrêmes des deux camps qui s’époumonent à condamner ce qu’une majorité de Français, dans l’expectative bienveillante, à l’évidence ne désapprouve pas explicitement. De part et d’autre du camp présidentiel, les bribes des anciens partis de gouvernement se disputent le drapeau de leader en tentant de grignoter sur le centre et sur les extrêmes. Grand écart meurtrier, gymnastique dangereuse, qui produit une fragmentation accélérée ici et là, selon un processus incontrôlé de scissiparité.

Pour la première fois en France, le centre de gravité du champ politique s’ordonne de manière autonome, sans combinaison préalable, ni dosage, ni addition ou soustraction avec les forces des deux blocs. On avait pu connaître des gouvernements du centre : il s’agissait toujours de moments de coalition pour faire face à un péril de droite ou de gauche. Rien de tel aujourd’hui : une large majorité de Français a délibérément accepté de sortir des chemins balisés par les vieux clivages traditionnels.

Si la présence de Marine Le Pen au second tour de la présidentielle pouvait troubler la lecture, la très ample victoire des législatives ne laisse aucune place au doute. Une vaste armée venue de l’ombre a balayé une génération forgée sur les pavois des grands partis de gouvernement. On assiste là à une véritable déconnexion à la française vis-à-vis d’un dualisme qui a tant conditionné et rythmé dans ce pays les alternances gouvernantes.

Certes, Emmanuel Macron a bénéficié d’opportunes circonstances, avec au premier rang l’auto-implosion d’un système partisan discrédité. Mais la chance ne suffit pas à expliquer cette mutation spectaculaire dans l’ordre politique. La réussite actuelle de sa trajectoire ne saurait se réduire à un hasard de bonne fortune, à un prétendu vide politique qu’il aurait habilement saisi, à un rejet des extrêmes.

Ces éléments ont pu jouer, mais comme adjuvants à un besoin profond et brutal d’une majorité de Français : celui de rompre les ponts avec des acteurs politiques dont le jeu apparaissait usé, stérile et dangereux, puisqu’il ne faisait qu’amener l’extrémisme aux portes du pouvoir. La force d’Emmanuel Macron a été d’assumer cette urgence à sortir du pré carré de la vieille politique, d’accréditer qu’il n’y avait de pensée en mouvement qu’intégrée à une pensée du mouvement.

Changer de notes

C’est Corneille qui donnait déjà ce conseil politique avisé :

« Il faut considérer pour son propre intérêt,
Et le temps où l’on vit et les lieux où l’on est. »

Les responsables des partis dominants, s’abandonnant aux mirages troubles du passé, feignaient de croire que notre pays pouvait suivre un rythme indépendant mesuré par lui seul : c’était oublier, Europe à l’appui, que la France n’est plus qu’un petit secteur de la planète, et que son histoire s’écrit largement hors du cadre de l’hexagone. En total contrepoint, Emmanuel Macron a fait de la question internationale et européenne le pilier de son projet : pari audacieux dans le contexte national de repli. Mais posture fructueuse par la distance qu’elle creusait avec les candidats du système contesté. D’autant qu’elle s’appuyait sur un changement radical de méthode de campagne, et l’émergence d’un nouveau type d’acteur, « En marche ! ».

« En marche ! », le nom a pu faire couler beaucoup d’encre, parfois trempée d’ironie autour des initiales EM et de leur identification à celles du leader. Mais la chose s’est avérée d’une efficacité remarquable : sa polysémie occupait pleinement l’horizon d’attente des Français ; cela sonnait comme un défi à l’immobilisme des acteurs politiques, une affirmation de volonté d’agir, un désir de se rassembler. Refusant d’emblée l’entre-soi des partis, le nouveau mouvement se voulait ouvert, sans ostracisation de quiconque et sans exigence d’abandon.

Mais surtout, il intégrait une donnée fondamentale : l’appel de la route, le recours à l’itinérance. On cherche la finalité dans l’itinéraire emprunté, le but dans le chemin. La dialectique des fins et des moyens s’inscrit alors derrière celle des buts et du cheminement. Visiblement, « marcher » est apparu à beaucoup comme le signal pour sortir des tranchées de l’alternance et de l’impuissance.

L’affaire a d’autant mieux porté ses fruits qu’elle s’opérait dans une atmosphère propice au rejet des clivages. La menace terroriste aussi permanente que diffuse faisant suite aux terribles attentats de Paris et de Nice invite naturellement à l’union, au rassemblement. Le poids de la crise et les cortèges de chômeurs appellent au rassemblement des énergies. L’heure n’est plus aux querelles de chapelles politiques, mais à la recherche d’une énergie collective pour résister. C’est de n’avoir pas compris ce besoin d’unité que tant du côté du FN que de celui des Insoumis on doit aujourd’hui baisser l’oreille.

Open space politique

Emmanuel Macron et ses troupes de LREM, en épousant pleinement l’air du temps, ont tracé une perspective cavalière dans le champ politique. Mais cela ne suffit pas à garantir l’avenir. L’essartage auquel ils ont procédé a, certes, ouvert l’horizon. Il n’a pas pour autant supprimé le clivage droite-gauche qui affleure à la surface quand il ne jaillit pas en travers de la route. Car ce qui a explosé lors des deux dernières consultations, c’est le système des partis et leur ventilation, non leur substrat idéologique. Les vieux partis étaient malades, épuisés par leur décalage avec l’évolution politique, économique et sociale.

Avant de se forger au moule présidentiel, les partis de gauche s’étaient développés sur une base sociale de classes organisées en syndicats. Adossé à l’État-providence, le Parti socialiste s’est progressivement vidé de sa substance sociale : l’affaiblissement de son alliée privilégiée, la CFDT, la disparition de son bastion de la FEN ont accéléré son déclin. Perdue dans un manteau politique trop lâche pour elle, la social-démocratie française est devenue un grand corps malade et s’est noyée dans une sorte de conservatisme évolutif. La chute brutale de 2017 n’est donc que l’épilogue d’une longue dégénérescence.

Laurent Wauquiez, le nouveau patron de la droite, le 10 décembre à Paris, après son élection à la tête des Républicains.Jacques Demarthon/AFP

La droite a longtemps été rebelle à la structuration dans des partis solides. Elle a cependant été astreinte à une conversion partisane par le système présidentialisé de la V^e République : UNR, UDR, RPR, UMP, autant de rassemblements pour la conquête du pouvoir suprême. Mais à la différence des vieux partis de gauche, cette formule ne s’appuie pas sur une idéologie fermement déclarée. La droite met en avant le pragmatisme et l’efficacité ; elle privilégie l’agencement autour d’une forte personnalité. On devine l’effet dévastateur d’une crise de ce leadership, aggravée par l’échec patent du projet politique à résoudre les problèmes du moment et l’effrayant vide des alternances successives. La voilà réduite à pêcher en eau trouble identitaire.

UMP et PS, bateaux devenus ivres, ont tous deux démâté en pleine mer. Les partis du vieux centre, étouffés qu’ils étaient par la bipolarisation, perdent avec elle leur logique d’alliance et du même coup dérivent au gré du vent, privés qu’ils sont de môles d’amarrage. Ainsi le champ politique se voit transformé en vaste open space où errent les fantômes des anciens navires amiraux. L’heure est aux convergences éphémères, aux rencontres furtives, aux ruptures saccadées.

Certes comme la gauche, la droite reviendra à la surface. Ni l’une ni l’autre n’ont disparu, elles ont été mises de côté par l’esprit du temps. Le clivage, quel que soit le nom qu’on lui donne, s’enracine au plus profond de la mécanique sociale. Le vieux balancier de l’ordre et du mouvement, du social et de l’individuel, de l’égalité et de la liberté continue son tic-tac dans la pénombre. Et l’on ajoutera qu’il n’y a jamais eu une droite et une gauche, mais des droites et des gauches : une droite autoritaire, libérale, sociale, contre-révolutionnaire, républicaine… Une gauche patriote, internationaliste, réformiste, radicale, sociale… Bref, tout un nuancier au travers duquel les idées varient et circulent au gré des courants et des moments.

Confiance à crédit

La grande force d’Emmanuel Macron, avec En marche ! aura été de jouer sur ce nuancier pour renvoyer au second plan les antinomies traditionnelles. Rassembler, au nom de l’action, autour de mesures compatibles, des membres des deux vieux camps. Il a ainsi bénéficié, non d’un crédit de confiance, mais d’une confiance à crédit dont il devra répondre le moment venu. Avec le danger de se faire tondre les électeurs sur le dos par les bigarrures partisanes qui se seront redéveloppées sur les ruines des anciens partis.

En effet, résister à ces résurgences impose de forger un outil politique d’un genre inédit, capable de faire vivre ensemble des hommes et des femmes des deux camps sans qu’ils perdent leurs convictions singulières. L’équation est complexe, car il ne peut s’agir de recréer un parti à l’identique en ne changeant que l’étiquette : l’affaire serait sans lendemain, les Français ayant de manière spectaculaire exprimé leur rejet des vieilles formules partisanes. Il s’agit donc d’inventer quelque chose qui ne soit pas qu’un instrument de désignation des candidats ni qu’un porte-voix du gouvernement et du Président. Au-delà d’une nécessaire cohérence d’ensemble du discours et de l’action, il devra proposer une autre manière d’agir, un autre rapport à la politique

N’est-ce pas d’ailleurs ce que beaucoup croient avoir entendu dans le message d’Emmanuel Macron ? Une volonté exprimée d’activer l’autonomie, de libérer l’énergie sociale ? De faire émerger et remonter les initiatives individuelles et sociales. Les discours de campagne résonnaient comme une prise de conscience de l’insuffisance des solutions dictées d’en haut. Il y a d’ailleurs là peut-être le sésame du succès macronien. Le rejet des partis, l’apparente indifférence des Français aux politiques, n’était-ce pas essentiellement un refus de participer à un système qui les traitait en simples consommateurs d’un spectacle fabriqué par une bureaucratie coupée de la société ? Car la France s’étiole, étouffée qu’elle est par des bureaucrates qui ont pris le pouvoir des mains défaillantes des acteurs politiques. Ceux-ci, incapables de faire face à la situation, se sont déchargés de leurs responsabilités sur des hauts fonctionnaires qui n’auraient dû qu’être au service du public.

En établissant du haut en bas de l’édifice un corset étouffant, la bureaucratie moderne a miné la capacité de proposer et d’agir. Or, c’est dans la renaissance de cette inventivité que réside le seul espoir de sortir de la crise de confiance que traverse la société. Et pour LREM de s’imposer comme acteur durable.

Faisant écho aux paroles d’un chanteur populaire récemment disparu, le moment n’est-il pas venu de donner aux Français non seulement l’envie d’avoir envie, mais aussi les marges de manœuvre pour agir ?

 

World Economic Forum – Students learn better from books than screens, according to a new study – Written by Patricia A. Alexander, Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland Lauren M. Singer, Ph.D. Candidate in Educational Psychology, University of Maryland, published in collaboration with The Conversation.

 

 

Today’s students see themselves as digital natives, the first generation to grow up surrounded by technology like smartphones, tablets and e-readers.

Teachers, parents and policymakers certainly acknowledge the growing influence of technology and have responded in kind. We’ve seen more investment in classroom technologies, with students now equipped with school-issued iPads and access to e-textbooks. In 2009, California passed a law requiring that all college textbooks be available in electronic form by 2020; in 2011, Florida lawmakers passed legislation requiring public schools to convert their textbooks to digital versions.

Given this trend, teachers, students, parents and policymakers might assume that students’ familiarity and preference for technology translates into better learning outcomes. But we’ve found that’s not necessarily true.

As researchers in learning and text comprehension, our recent work has focused on the differences between reading print and digital media. While new forms of classroom technology like digital textbooks are more accessible and portable, it would be wrong to assume that students will automatically be better served by digital reading simply because they prefer it.

Speed – at a cost

Our work has revealed a significant discrepancy. Students said they preferred and performed better when reading on screens. But their actual performance tended to suffer.

For example, from our review of research done since 1992, we found that students were able to better comprehend information in print for texts that were more than a page in length. This appears to be related to the disruptive effect that scrolling has on comprehension. We were also surprised to learn that few researchers tested different levels of comprehension or documented reading time in their studies of printed and digital texts.

To explore these patterns further, we conducted three studies that explored college students’ ability to comprehend information on paper and from screens.

Students first rated their medium preferences. After reading two passages, one online and one in print, these students then completed three tasks: Describe the main idea of the texts, list key points covered in the readings and provide any other relevant content they could recall. When they were done, we asked them to judge their comprehension performance.

Across the studies, the texts differed in length, and we collected varying data (e.g., reading time). Nonetheless, some key findings emerged that shed new light on the differences between reading printed and digital content:

Students overwhelming preferred to read digitally.

Reading was significantly faster online than in print.

Students judged their comprehension as better online than in print.

Paradoxically, overall comprehension was better for print versus digital reading.

The medium didn’t matter for general questions (like understanding the main idea of the text).

But when it came to specific questions, comprehension was significantly better when participants read printed texts.

Placing print in perspective

From these findings, there are some lessons that can be conveyed to policymakers, teachers, parents and students about print’s place in an increasingly digital world.

1. Consider the purpose

We all read for many reasons. Sometimes we’re looking for an answer to a very specific question. Other times, we want to browse a newspaper for today’s headlines.

As we’re about to pick up an article or text in a printed or digital format, we should keep in mind why we’re reading. There’s likely to be a difference in which medium works best for which purpose.

In other words, there’s no “one medium fits all” approach.

2. Analyze the task

One of the most consistent findings from our research is that, for some tasks, medium doesn’t seem to matter. If all students are being asked to do is to understand and remember the big idea or gist of what they’re reading, there’s no benefit in selecting one medium over another.

But when the reading assignment demands more engagement or deeper comprehension, students may be better off reading print. Teachers could make students aware that their ability to comprehend the assignment may be influenced by the medium they choose. This awareness could lessen the discrepancy we witnessed in students’ judgments of their performance vis-à-vis how they actually performed.

3. Slow it down

In our third experiment, we were able to create meaningful profiles of college students based on the way they read and comprehended from printed and digital texts.

Among those profiles, we found a select group of undergraduates who actually comprehended better when they moved from print to digital. What distinguished this atypical group was that they actually read slower when the text was on the computer than when it was in a book. In other words, they didn’t take the ease of engaging with the digital text for granted. Using this select group as a model, students could possibly be taught or directed to fight the tendency to glide through online texts.

4. Something that can’t be measured

There may be economic and environmental reasons to go paperless. But there’s clearly something important that would be lost with print’s demise.

In our academic lives, we have books and articles that we regularly return to. The dog-eared pages of these treasured readings contain lines of text etched with questions or reflections. It’s difficult to imagine a similar level of engagement with a digital text. There should probably always be a place for print in students’ academic lives – no matter how technologically savvy they become.

Of course, we realize that the march toward online reading will continue unabated. And we don’t want to downplay the many conveniences of online texts, which include breadth and speed of access.

Rather, our goal is simply to remind today’s digital natives – and those who shape their educational experiences – that there are significant costs and consequences to discounting the printed word’s value for learning and academic development.

World Economic Forum – You’re more likely to achieve the American dream if you live in Denmark – Written by Kate Pickett, Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Health Sciences, University of York and Richard Wilkinson, Honorary Visiting Professor of Social Epidemiology, University of York, published in collaboration with The Conversation.

 

If moving forward is the goal, it’s a not a good policy to stand still. Yet we hear little from the government about solutions to Britain’s poor record on social mobility. Earlier this year both the current administration and its predecessors were roundly condemned for their failure to make any headway.

Research has repeatedly shown the clear link between high levels of income inequality and low levels of social mobility. This graph, from our book The Spirit Level shows that far from being the land of opportunity, the US has very low social mobility. You’re much more likely to achieve the “American dream” if you live in Denmark.

British social mobility is damaged by the UK’s high income inequality. Economists have argued that young people from low income families are less likely to invest in their own human capital development (their education) in more unequal societies. Young people are more likely to drop out of high school in more unequal US states or to be NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) in more unequal rich countries. Average educational performance on maths and literacy tests is lower in more unequal countries.

It isn’t that young people in unequal societies lack aspirations. In fact, they are more likely to aspire to success. The sad thing is they are less likely to achieve it.

But the ways in which inequality hampers social mobility go far beyond educational involvement and attainment. In unequal societies, more parents will have mental illness or problems with drugs and alcohol. They will be more likely to be burdened by debt and long working hours, adding stress to family life. More young women will have babies as teenagers, more young men will be involved in violence.

Yet if we really tackle inequality, we can expect not only improvements in social mobility but in many other problems at the same time. It’s not enough to focus on educational fixes for social immobility, nor even on poverty reduction and raising the minimum wage. We need to tackle inequality itself, and that includes changing the culture of runaway salaries and bonuses at the top of the income distribution.

For a long time this has felt like an insurmountable challenge, but reducing inequality within and between all countries is now one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to which the UK is a signatory.

There are targets and indicators to monitor progress on reducing inequality and the should be held government accountable for this. Unicef recently reported that the UK ranks 13th among rich countries in meeting the SDGs for children. But it ranked 34th on the hunger goal, and 31st on decent work and economic growth.

As the fifth biggest economy in the world (based on GDP per capita), Britain should be doing better for all its children and young people.

The June report by the Social Mobility Commission concluded that most public policy to improve social mobility under prime ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May either failed to improve the situation – or demonstrably made things worse.

Suggested improvements included cross departmental government strategy, ten-year targets for long term change, and a social mobility “test” for all new relevant public policy. It also recommended that public spending be redistributed to address geographical, wealth and generational inequalities. And it advised government coalitions with local councils, communities and employers to create a national effort to improve social mobility.

So far as they go, applying these “lessons” could indeed be helpful. But specific policy recommendations to address social mobility will not reduce the income and wealth inequalities which are at its root.

Appetite for change

So, is there a mandate for change? On the same day as the depressing news about a lack of progress on social mobility, the British Social Attitudes Surveyreleased its annual findings. The results suggested that the public are in favour of progressive change. As many as 48% of people surveyed support higher tax and more public spending, up from 32% at the start of austerity in 2010.

Support for spending on benefits for disabled people is up to 67%, compared with 53% in 2010. And the proportion of people believing benefits claimants were “fiddling” the system dropped to 22% – the lowest level in 30 years. The proportion of the population who thought that government should redistribute income rich to poor was up to 42%, compared to 28% who disagreed. This is a strong mandate for reducing income inequality and ending austerity.

The evidence which shows the damage caused by socioeconomic inequality is mounting. The UK government risks being on the wrong side of history if it continues to fail to address the divide – and condemn us all to its devastating impact.

World Economic Forum – This is the secret to leading a good life. – Written by Frank T. McAndrew, Professor of Psychology, Knox College, in collaboration with The Conversation.

In the 1990s, a psychologist named Martin Seligman led the positive psychology movement, which placed the study of human happiness squarely at the center of psychology research and theory. It continued a trend that began in the 1960s with humanistic and existential psychology, which emphasized the importance of reaching one’s innate potential and creating meaning in one’s life, respectively.

Since then, thousands of studies and hundreds of books have been published with the goal of increasing well-being and helping people lead more satisfying lives.

So why aren’t we happier? Why have self-reported measures of happiness stayed stagnantfor over 40 years?

Perversely, such efforts to improve happiness could be a futile attempt to swim against the tide, as we may actually be programmed to be dissatisfied most of the time.

You can’t have it all

Part of the problem is that happiness isn’t just one thing.

Jennifer Hecht is a philosopher who studies the history of happiness. In her book “The Happiness Myth,” Hecht proposes that we all experience different types of happiness, but these aren’t necessarily complementary. Some types of happiness may even conflict with one another. In other words, having too much of one type of happiness may undermine our ability to have enough of the others – so it’s impossible for us to simultaneously have all types of happiness in great quantities.

For example, a satisfying life built on a successful career and a good marriage is something that unfolds over a long period of time. It takes a lot of work, and it often requires avoiding hedonistic pleasures like partying or going on spur-of-the-moment trips. It also means you can’t while away too much of your time spending one pleasant lazy day after another in the company of good friends.

On the other hand, keeping your nose to the grindstone demands that you cut back on many of life’s pleasures. Relaxing days and friendships may fall by the wayside.

As happiness in one area of life increases, it’ll often decline in another.

A rosy past, a future brimming with potential

This dilemma is further confounded by the way our brains process the experience of happiness.

By way of illustration, consider the following examples.

We’ve all started a sentence with the phrase “Won’t it be great when…” (I go to college, fall in love, have kids, etc.). Similarly, we often hear older people start sentences with this phrase “Wasn’t it great when…”

Think about how seldom you hear anyone say, “Isn’t this great, right now?”

Surely, our past and future aren’t always better than the present. Yet we continue to think that this is the case.

These are the bricks that wall off harsh reality from the part of our mind that thinks about past and future happiness. Entire religions have been constructed from them. Whether we’re talking about our ancestral Garden of Eden (when things were great!) or the promise of unfathomable future happiness in Heaven, Valhalla, Jannah or Vaikuntha, eternal happiness is always the carrot dangling from the end of the divine stick.

There’s evidence for why our brains operate this way; most of us possess something called the optimistic bias, which is the tendency to think that our future will be better than our present.

To demonstrate this phenomenon to my classes, at the beginning of a new term I’ll tell my students the average grade received by all students in my class over the past three years. I then ask them to anonymously report the grade that they expect to receive. The demonstration works like a charm: Without fail, the expected grades are far higher than one would reasonably expect, given the evidence at hand.

And yet, we believe.

Cognitive psychologists have also identified something called the Pollyanna Principle. It means that we process, rehearse and remember pleasant information from the past more than unpleasant information. (An exception to this occurs in depressed individuals who often fixate on past failures and disappointments.)

For most of us, however, the reason that the good old days seem so good is that we focus on the pleasant stuff and tend to forget the day-to-day unpleasantness.

Self-delusion as an evolutionary advantage?

These delusions about the past and the future could be an adaptive part of the human psyche, with innocent self-deceptions actually enabling us to keep striving. If our past is great and our future can be even better, then we can work our way out of the unpleasant – or at least, mundane – present.

All of this tells us something about the fleeting nature of happiness. Emotion researchers have long known about something called the hedonic treadmill. We work very hard to reach a goal, anticipating the happiness it will bring. Unfortunately, after a brief fix we quickly slide back to our baseline, ordinary way-of-being and start chasing the next thing we believe will almost certainly – and finally – make us happy.

My students absolutely hate hearing about this; they get bummed out when I imply that however happy they are right now – it’s probably about how happy they will be 20 years from now. (Next time, perhaps I will reassure them that in the future they’ll remember being very happy in college!)

Nevertheless, studies of lottery winners and other individuals at the top of their game – those who seem to have it all – regularly throw cold water on the dream that getting what we really want will change our lives and make us happier. These studies found that positive events like winning a million bucks and unfortunate events such as being paralyzed in an accident do not significantly affect an individual’s long-term level of happiness.

Assistant professors who dream of attaining tenure and lawyers who dream of making partner often find themselves wondering why they were in such a hurry. After finally publishing a book, it was depressing for me to realize how quickly my attitude went from “I’m a guy who wrote a book!” to “I’m a guy who’s only written one book.”

But this is how it should be, at least from an evolutionary perspective. Dissatisfaction with the present and dreams of the future are what keep us motivated, while warm fuzzy memories of the past reassure us that the feelings we seek can be had. In fact, perpetual bliss would completely undermine our will to accomplish anything at all; among our earliest ancestors, those who were perfectly content may have been left in the dust.

This shouldn’t be depressing; quite the contrary. Recognizing that happiness exists – and that it’s a delightful visitor that never overstays its welcome – may help us appreciate it more when it arrives.

Furthermore, understanding that it’s impossible to have happiness in all aspects of life can help you enjoy the happiness that has touched you.

Recognizing that no one “has it all” can cut down on the one thing psychologists know impedes happiness: envy.