Diamonds are forever, but videogames will make you happy

The downside of listening to current events programmes on the radio is that you get to hear some pretty depressing stuff most of the time. Today was an exception.

I heard the most delightful story about a psychiatrist who started a football team for his patients. It worked so well that others followed his example. Now they have a league for their teams to compete in. Many patients got better, got jobs, even got married. And rediscovered their sense of humor. Take Bernadetto for example. He was dribbling down the right wing while teammate Mario was yelling at him to pass the ball. Bernadetto laughed and reminded him that he already heard plenty of voices in his head; Mario was not helping by adding one more.

The story reminded me of a friend who suffered from a stroke a few months ago. He's been making a remarkable recovery, and I firmly believe that his passion for cricket has made a world of difference to how fast he's been getting better.

There's an interesting connection with a recent article in the Economist on the nature of happiness. It makes the point that as economists are turning more attention to what makes people happy (rather than merely rich), they're finding that people derive the most pleasure from doing things that absorb their interest, much more than they do from owning objects. Which, bringing the story back to football, would explain why Jose Mourinho seems to have much more fun as Chelsea's manager than Roman Abramovich does as the club's owner.

It does seem intuitive that happy people would generally be healthy people. And I am even more convinced than ever before that happy people are people who have the opportunity to feed their passions. Certainly among the people whom I know, the ones who are the most upbeat live multi-dimesional lives. (There are one or two who are so multi-dimensional I sometimes wonder if they spend part of their life in a parallel universe where time slows and energy is infinite).

So what did I learn today? Don't bother to save money, spend it all on videogames. Stay away from people who don't like football - they're just crazy. And if you hear voices in your head, don't ever pass the ball to them.