What Is Happiness?
By Greg Evans
I recently read a book called The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner. In the book, he travels to different countries, aiming to, essentially accomplish what has never been done. Aristotle, Plato, and others over the past 2,000 years and maybe even before that, pondered this enigma. But Weiner left the typewriter behind and hit the road in search of the meaning of happiness. It was bold. What you might find may not only give you the answers you seek, but then spiral you into the great abyss that plagues nearly everyone, reality falls short of expectations. That is an important word, expectations.
He travels to a poor country, Bhutan; a rich country, Qatar; the most unhappy country in the world (based on the statistical research of the Netherlands-based Ruut Veenhoven, the world’s foremost expert on Happiness) Moldova, and several others.
It was an interesting exploration into the subjectivity of happiness. It is completely individual and existentially complex.
My impression is that happiness overall comes from primarily three things: Low expectations, even lower levels of stress, and enough money to be comfortable without any envy. Some say money doesn’t buy happiness, or money can buy happiness (even if only temporarily). Weiner discovered a few things intertwined with happiness. A strong network of like-minded acquaintances, family, and friends seemed to be a given. Living in Iceland. Which leads us to his discovery that a palm tree and a beach didn’t necessarily correlate to happiness. I must admit, I was surprised by that as people love to show off beach pics and everyone is always smiling. And of course, there is that age-old argument that money can’t buy happiness, or can it? Weiner found:
You need money to at least live comfortably in the most basic sense (at least in the Western world, or misery can take over your disposition), or,
You need money because you are envious of others and are trying to keep up (which is temporary happiness, sort of, such as throughout the Western world).
I relate most of this observation to the United States since I have never lived in any other country.
I do think money can make you happier. But it is the spending of money where you run into trouble with unhappiness. It’s an awkward paradox. It doesn’t make any sense, but it seems to be true.
A personal example: I was planning on renting a room at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington D.C. for several days, just because. Just on a whim because I guess subconsciously I thought it would knock my happiness out of the park; however, when I learned they didn’t offer complimentary parking, I booked elsewhere. To find complimentary parking, I had to go outside of Washington, like 15 miles. I was willing to spend $1,000 a night at the Waldorf, but I expected complimentary parking, and, therefore, the reality didn’t meet my expectations, and I found myself depressed, or at least disappointed. Having to spend the small fee for parking destroyed my happiness.
There is very little about today’s world, outside wholly natural and holistic activities, such as a walk along the beach collecting seashells or taking a stroll through the woods in autumn, that is not expensive and therefore, annoying. Unfortunately, I see greed in many things. It is a character flaw I own. People scoff at me and ask me how I can be a capitalist and complain all the time about legal piracy. That is a problem. I see the world as it is. I’ve been ripped off too many times to take it sitting down. At least ripped off in my interpretation of the concept. Maybe I am the one at fault here?
I don’t think anyone will ever fully know why greed is embedded in the DNA of humans. I think it is one of the universe’s mysteries.
Here, in the United States, greed is king. Money rules, and if you don’t have enough, you will suffer. Simple as that. Greed is a survival mechanism. Is it a variable to help define unadulterated happiness? Sure, if you invest it and not spend it all in three years. But as Morgan Housel has said, it is not the wealth that makes you happy but the freedom it offers.
Therefore, happiness doesn’t lie in the wealth itself but disciplined management of it. Now it has become rather complex. A guru from India claimed it was love that leads to happiness. Maybe, at least familial love, loving your children and your parents and brothers and sisters, etc. But with the divorce rate at what it is, I’m not sure that spousal love is particularly everlasting happiness, except in some cases; however, it is a form of temporary happiness. That has to be worth something in the short term. In the western world, though, I think it is small temporary happinesses that define happiness over all.
If you are childless and are going to live in the US, for example, and buy groceries and pay taxes, then you better make some money to maintain your happiness level. When I say “greed is king”, I truly mean it. People will slit your throat for a dime without a moment’s reflection or any feelings whatsoever of remorse. Even people with children who are struggling financially will suffer in the happiness department. You simply need money to be happy.
In terms of people clubbing you on a street corner for your wallet, it is not necessarily that they are innately bad (though I definitely wonder sometimes), but that the culture has gotten so out of whack, the cost of living is so high, that there is no way most people can be in harmony with the universe.
That might be too esoteric and hippy for the average person on the train heading into work to cram numbers into spreadsheets, I get it. It is too much for me too.
When the Aztecs were being slaughtered by the conquistadors for their gold, land, and women, you can bet they were convinced the universe had gone totally astray.
Someday, all the land in the contiguous United States will be 100% condos, subdivisions, or sterile commercial real estate with architecture reminiscent of the Soviet Block.
Where I live, what makes people the most happy is the building of apartment complexes and subdivisions. I live in the mountains and drive by these plastic developments with names like “Coral Cliffs,” and “Harbor View.” There is no coral, no oceanside cliffs, no views of a harbor or even a harbor at all, for 1,000 miles in any direction. Everybody is so happy when these hideous Truman Show subdivisions go up. It makes front page news.
Buy a lot in the “Driftwood Cottages”, the Appalachian Mountains’ most luxurious prefabricated homes, for $550,000 for a handful of square feet.
The last time driftwood washed up on the side of one of these mountains was 173 million years ago, give or take. The general population is happy because, in some twisted way, they were tricked into believing that progress and growth of the town into a city with city problems is not only acceptable, it is even good. It’s addictive. It’s progress. It’s revenue. It’s keeping pace with Chicago, New York, California, and Wichita.
There is this weird lopsided vision of sunburned tourists washing up on the banks of the Nolichucky River, who will then buy grossly overpriced real estate and become transplants. I call it a vision, which it was once, and now is coming true. These people are crammed into the “luxury” housing projects that are now starting to be mistaken for mountains dotting the skyline along Interstate-26.
City officials, the building commission, and the developers took a page straight from the playbooks of Manila and Croix-des-Bouquets. Even Slough, England, described by Eric Weiner as “frumpy”, is more concerned with the bane that is development and real estate homogeneity than here. When Weiner picks up the local newspaper, the Slough Observer, he sees an article criticizing “supermarket creep”, as it is called. It is not a shadowy figure lurking in the parking lot, but instead, the epidemic that is the “megastores”, popping up like acne on a once clean face, driving out the mom and pop shops. You’d never see an article criticizing development where I live. Not in a thousand years. Probably not where you live either. Cleveland, Pittsburgh, South Bend, Omaha, it doesn’t matter. It is the same everywhere.
The world has known many gold-thirsty monsters with names like Mitch, Joe, Matthew, Gary, Hernan, Nero, and Adolf.
Who really knows what makes the strange and often vulgar human mind tick? The more books I read, the more I understand that absolutely everything revolves around greed and gold. Nothing else seems to matter. So, that brings us back to happiness. What defines happiness depends on where you live and the culture, and the condition of the people, psychologically and financially. Can you see any difference between King Leopold II of Belgium and the ruthless land purveyors and contractors in your town, or even the decision-makers who run the MLB (Major League Baseball)? Let’s not even get into the disease that is Amazon and their robot and ad revolution.
I think anyone who experiences life within an avaricious and mercilessly cutthroat environment can never again return to a world where gold and greed don’t rule. Their minds will be too damaged to ever see the world innocently or without expectations ever again. The incessant need for gold destroyed Rome in 700 years. That is the benchmark for societal “longevity,” from a Western standpoint. Indigenous people in the Amazon can argue that they have been around for 30,000 years and are still thriving. They are correct. Until they experience life in the West. Then they’d return to their village, steamroll the entire thing, build condos or subdivisions, and start selling off plots.
English humorist, Jerome K. Jerome, once said about happiness, “Don’t show your happiness, just grumble along with the rest.” But here it is just the opposite. Don’t groan and grumble about the flattening of fields and forests. That is in bad taste. Join in and cheer and high-five the sprawling developments and grotesque commercial structures. “Structures” is too nice a word for it.
Unfortunately, I am alone in my opinions, just like that one person, if one even exists, who says Moldova is a nice place to live. I don’t know, I have never been there. Never will go either. However, I imagine, where I live now will resemble Chișinău in more ways than just ugly Soviet-era architecture in less than 20 years.
Some can argue that being an underperforming football coach is the ticket to happiness. James Franklin at Penn State, Brian Kelly at LSU, both fired for essentially sucking and given $50+ million payouts. Anyone who can’t find happiness with $50 million can always give it to me.
I just realized that most of this article is about money. That wasn’t the goal. But it is necessary if you are going to find any happiness, unless of course you fall in love again. I also read that happiness lies within the lines of a prenup. You be the judge.