Prosperity and the Meaning of Happiness

Americans are the most prosperous people in the world; it’s our birthright. At least that is what we’ve thought until recently. But now it is a new day. Angst has replaced our arrogance, and we are uncomfortable with a new understanding of our limits.

Americans, particularly the middle class, are suffering with varying degrees of wealth loss, and our sense of personal security and prosperity has taken a big hit. Consumer confidence levels are at historic lows and our stress levels high; that combination is not a recipe for having happy citizens.

Tough times bring fear, depression and anger. But tough times also offer us a great opportunity to reexamine our core beliefs and our basic assumptions about how we should define “prosperity” and “happiness.”  Just how should we perceive the “good life.”

Now is a great time to ask ourselves some challenging and potentially rewarding questions: Would we be less happy without all the possessions that we have assumed are the necessities of modern life? What if the reverse were true, that we could be happier with less?

The idea that limiting our possessions could lead to a more satifactory life is akin to religious blasphemy – the religion of consumerism. It’s a religion that has made us wealthy in material things, but it hasn’t made us truly happy.

The very nature of a consumer economy requires that we are forever dissatisfied with our station in life and our success is defined by our possessions. We learn at an early age that the one with the most toys stands atop  the social order. The problem is that no matter how hard one works, no matter how wealthy one becomes, there will always be someone with more wealth, more toys – cars, houses, yachts, and club memberships.

When I hike in the mountains around Tucson, I notice that the higher up the side of a mountain the lots are more expensive and the houses become larger. This demonstrates a  literal representation of our need to place ourselves above others to show them that we are superior beings, perhaps positioned closer to God, only because we can afford to live higher up the hill than other people.

I once owned a home with spectacular mountain views on one side and view of an island dotted strait and a snow capped volcano on the other. So I know something about owning an expensive lot with expansive views. The novelty eventually wears off, just as it does after a week or two driving a new luxury car. It all gets old: owning third and fourth houses, a larger yacht, the constant fawning of the employees at the spa.

Most people have to work hard to achieve a high plateau of consumption and might reasonably think their reward ought to be great happiness. But that is not necessarily so. It is true that the rich are probably happier than the poor – no surprise there.  The real difference probably comes from knowing they have a cushion of security (having great medical  insurance comes to mind) that the poor lack. But realistically their possessions have little or no relationship to their real level of life satisfaction.

On the “World Database of Happiness,” America is currently ranked at number 23, a rather disappointing number considering our immense wealth. The happiest people are living in Denmark, a small European country known for its somewhat unique balance of capitalism and socialism. They have a vibrant capitalist economy that is combined with a ”cradle to grave” social system. In Denmark no one is extremely poor, but no one is extremely rich. No one has to pay for excellent healthcare or to get an education, but very few have opulent lifestyles. Denmark has the eleventh “most free” market economy, so it can hardly be considered “socialist.”

It’s not that Danes with more education and motivation don’t get ahead. They do, but their rewards are more likely to be greater professional and social prestige rather than possessions. They take pleasure in community and social involvement, not individual aggrandizement.

All this capitalist freedom lives side-by-side with the highest taxes in the world. That fact goes against all that Americans believed about the economy during the Twentieth Century, namely that low taxes, small government, and a loose-spending population are the only routes to prosperity.

We may have to reconsider that premise. We might not be able to sustain the consumer driven model. Many Americans have come to the end of their rope: Most of us can’t work any harder. Couples are having to work long hours, sometimes at multiple jobs, to achieve the American Dream, only to find they are spending their happiness, sense of security, and even their health for a dream that by its very nature must always remain out of their reach.

The Danes know how to be thankful and how to be satisfied with fewer possessions. Instead, they have more time to enjoy what they do have with a greater sense of security and more happiness. That might not be the trade-off some of us would want to make, but the American middle class may soon realize it is they who are doing the real work in this country, but are benefiting the least.

It is seldom the poor who start revolutions, but rather the middle class. The 2008 election could have been the first shot fired in a bloodless war against worn out ideas. The American middle class may be saying that it will no longer be content to be the spending engine of an unsustainable economic model.

Of the countries we have visited by bicycle and sailboat, our overall impressions of the people’s sense of well being, their smiles and eagerness to interact, follows the happiness list closely, very much like the population of tiny Vanuatu, listed just below the U.S. at number twenty-four.

Sometimes it is the poorer peoples who understand happiness best. When Claire and I crewed on the catamaran Songlines, we anchored off some remote islands in Fiji, similar in lifestyle to Vanuatu. The people grew their food and lived in shacks that were smaller than many garden sheds in America.

Friendly Ladies in Fiji . . .

One afternoon as we strolled a beach, we were invited, in sign language, to join two ladies for tea in the shade of their windowless home. We drank strong tea from their inexpensive but ornate mugs, an obvious source of pride to them, ate home made scones and jam, shared photos and “talked.” After an hour of warm communication, we reluctantly left to row the skiff back to Songlines, a modern sailboat probably worth more than their entire village. No money changed hands as it would have been an insult to their hospitality. As we parted, their faces showed the joy they had received from the giving, and our faces beamed back at them with genuine appreciation.

It is a moment we will not forget.

Human happiness is a far more complex idea than having great success and many possessions. Happiness is sharing with others, the giving and receiving of that most precious and limited of possessions – our time.