Everyone is about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Except it matters very much where your mind happens to live.
Several weeks after reading this review and summary of new and old happiness research, I keep coming back to it. Two new policy books the article mentions argue that Gross Domestic Product (G.D.P.) as a measure of a country’s progress doesn’t correlate with its people’s happiness, based on numerous studies. In fact, poorer countries were as happy or even happier than wealthier ones, and despite decades of exponential growth here, Americans are as happy as we were back in the ‘50s. Therefore, the authors argue, governments should discard or at least weigh G.D.P. against other factors, and consider implementing policies that would raise overall levels of happiness, such as better protections for losing a job, better attention to mental health, and more outdoor play spaces.
If we consider what is not counted as production in calculating G.D.P., maybe we get our macro answer on the connection between wealth and happiness:
“Thus excluded are services provided by people to members of their own families free of charge, such as child rearing, meal preparation, cleaning, transportation, entertainment of family members, emotional support, care of the elderly.”
People in countries with low G.D.P. spend most of their time in this realm, the same one — at least in terms of being with family, cooking, and caring for each other — that even the wealthiest claim makes them happiest. Their choices for the focus of their time, efforts and resources — which also happen to be the ones that lead to happiness — are dictated by the societies in which they live.
In “The Late Homecomer,” a fantastic memoir on the Hmong immigration experience by local writer Kao Kalia Yang, Yang’s family is forced by war from the mountains of Laos. In St. Paul, of course, they can no longer work in gardens with babies strapped to their backs. Her parents take midnight shifts in factories, and the older children raise the babies after school. They scrabble for years in poverty to make it to the next rungs, and the next, of middle class life. Over and over again, they say how lucky they are to be here. Lucky, yes, but happy, Yang observes, no.
We are familiar with the story of the upward climb — adapting up. That it doesn’t make people “happier” (except, I should point out, for the very wealthy, who are happiest in all countries) is not shocking even as we dismiss the argument as heresy. So I was surprised that an article about happiness, policy, and G.D.P. merely flirted with the issue of energy consumption and its relationship to a country’s standard of living as measured by G.D.P. Residences represent a 15 percent share of world energy consumption, and no one has to tell us that the more money we have, the more we consume. Of course, what politician is going to dare to try implementing a policy that echoes former president Carter’s admonition to “put on a sweater?”
So the big question is: Will the new normal be adapting down? Way down? And would we all be happier for it? (Think of “happiness” here not as butterflies and rainbows, but as in “the pursuit of.”
I just watched the documentary “No Impact Man” which shows how difficult and controversial adapting down can be. Once the story of Colin Beaven’s family project to give up every modern convenience for a year hit the New York Times, they got tons of criticism, from “Your bike looks tacky in front of our apartment building” to “Don’t shake their hands because if they’re not using toilet paper then they’ve got to be unsanitary.”
Colin’s wife Michelle, who hated the project, makes the whole thing very worth watching — she’s America, saying, yes, I’ll reduce, reuse and recycle tomorrow, okay? But I’m not giving up coffee and get those disgusting compost worms out of my face. Our eyes are hers as she spies a designer bag in a thrift store, the conversation she has is as familiar as hello-how-are-you: “You have that bag,” her husband says. “No, I have the white one, and it’s a different design — it’s a completely different bag.” We study her gaze — will she or won’t she cheat?
Our head throbs with hers at the prospect of doing laundry in the tub. Our toes curl a little bit as they hit the suds, squish into the sodden shirts and socks and underwear. We let out our breath with her, a little shaky, as we take the first step, gauge the change in the level.
By project end, Michelle has learned to cook, has lost enough weight to no longer be pre-diabetic, and describes herself as deeply happy in a way that she finds hard to describe and that is “sort of embarrassing.” As voyeurs, though, we can’t quite penetrate this secret with her — it’s up to us to grope for the new level.
Tags: G.D.P. · happiness · No Impact Man
