Have you ever made money walking dogs? Running a catering business? Have you set a world record in anything? Have you ever tutored or established a nonprofit organization or published a book? If so, you might be able to work for Google. According to this morning's New York Times, the Internet phenomenon receives 100,000 job applications each week. So the company has devised an elaborate online (of course) survey which explores your attitudes, behavior, personality, and biography going back to high school.

Your answers are fed into a series of formulas which create a score from zero to 100. Your score is supposed to predict how well you'll fit into the company's chaotic and competitive culture. I'm thinking we need a similar survey to qualify readers of this essay: can you read? Do you have access to a computer? Can you open an email? Dog walking would be optional.

On the other hand, the Times is warning us that if we want to live longer, we'll not apply to work at Google or anywhere else just yet. According to researchers, the only key which is consistently linked to longer lives everywhere it has been studied is education. It is more important than race, income, health insurance, or any other factor. A few extra years in school is connected with extra years of life and vastly improved health in old age. We'll look into getting you continuing ed credit for reading today's essay.

We know more about the future than ever before, or at least we think we do. We have tests to tell us the gender and even eye color of our children nearly the moment they're conceived. Aptitude tests gauge our expected success at a college, major, or company. We know more about extending life than any society ever has. And yet all our diagnostic tools and prognosticating expertise doesn't seem to have made us any happier. We are living longer, but are we living better?

Anti-depressants are the most common prescription in America. Surveys say we're not as happy as our parents' generation, by a long ways. We divorce more often than they did, are more likely to be unfulfilled at work, and feel less optimistic about the future. Now aren't you glad you read this far?

There's a solution to our quest for happiness in life. It's not found in predicted aptitudes or added education. It's not the product of New Year's resolutions to lose weight or learn Spanish. It doesn't even come from listening to sermons like mine or reading spiritual essays like this one. Formulas aren't the answer. What is? Let's finish tomorrow.

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