Elusive happiness
By Peter Honey (April 2004 Issue)
0 Comments 
Article Rating: 
Email to a friend | Print Version
Apparently, in the developed world, life during the last 50 years has been getting steadily better while feelings of happiness have been getting worse. I realise this is a meaningless statement unless we can agree what ‘better’ means. I’m thinking of things like increases in real incomes, longevity, home ownership, material possessions, consumer choice, educational opportunities and personal freedoms. Of course, you may not especially rate things like these (in which case it isn’t surprising that they fail to make you happy!). You may be actively campaigning to improve something you do consider worthwhile, such as an end to discriminatory practices, an increase in environmentally friendly practices, more racial, religious and sexual tolerance, and so on. However, there is general agreement that, in our society, life for the majority of people is far easier than it was during and immediately after the Second World War. Despite this, it appears there is a negative correlation between an easier life and a happier life.
My theme is inspired by a thought-provoking book by Greg Easterbrook called The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse.1 This book contains some fascinating research findings – some of them counter-intuitive – including the ones that follow.
* Having money does not have much effect on happiness (though a lack of it can cause unhappiness).
* Older people tend to be happier than young people (suggesting that a sense of well-being is to some extent an acquired state of mind).
* Disabled and chronically ill people are slightly happier than the population at large. (They tend to be better at counting their blessings.)
* Married people, and people in stable relationships, tend to be happier than single people or people living alone.
* People in large families are happier than those in small families.
* People who attend lots of events where they interact with others are happier than stay-at-homes.
Clearly, happiness is a subjective concept – in fact, so subjective it is impossible to agree what it really is. The best researchers can do is to describe it as ‘a feeling of well-being’. There is evidence to suggest that the number of people who don’t have this feeling, and/or who suffer from clinical depression, is on the increase. Surveys reveal that people who claim they always feel low (it doesn’t even come and go as, for example, in the case of manic-depression) are ten times more prevalent than half a century ago.
By contrast, in the developing world, where people spend all day exerting themselves to meet basic survival needs, happiness shows no decline. This is presumably because they are too busy (and too exhausted!) to have the time and energy to feel low. In more affluent societies, it seems we have the time and money to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. Feeling low is a luxury we can afford.
All this rather reminds me of Frederick Herzberg’s work on hygiene factors. He maintained that when hygiene factors weren’t right, they triggered feelings of dissatisfaction (that is, unhappiness). And even when they were right, they only lifted people to a sort of neutral state where they were neither happy nor unhappy. Perhaps the reason why people don’t necessarily feel better, even when things are better, is because the improvements are all operating as hygiene factors. The best they can deliver is a reduction in dissatisfaction, but not an increase in happiness.
Greg Easterbrook’s book also explores why it might be that improvements in external circumstances do not necessarily improve people’s internal feelings of well-being. Suggested pitfalls are:
* assuming that fulfilling a want will bring happiness – any gratification is temporary since wants present themselves in a never-ending upward spiral
* making comparisons with people who are better off
* looking ahead and worrying about whether things in the future will be better or worse, instead of enjoying the here and now
* being so self-centred that a sense of perspective is lost and personal setbacks assume an overwhelming importance
* believing you ought to feel good about yourself and have high self-esteem all the time, come what may * behaving like a helpless victim – learned helplessness prevents people taking initiatives and asserting control
* allowing your expectations to become idealised through, for example, the effects of advertising
* succumbing to a culture of blame and complaint – this ‘defaults’ people to focus on negative aspects, and
* exaggerating the frequency of crime, accidents and disasters.
In the light of so many hazards, what on earth can we do to feel happier? Basically it seems there are three things to practise: being realistically optimistic by training yourself to expect tribulations and setbacks; being a forgiver (people who forgive are happier, healthier and live longer than people who bear grudges); and being grateful instead of nursing grudges – and, of course, I’d add being an enthusiastic learner, and getting a kick out of helping other people to learn and develop!
Reference
1. Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse, Random House, 2003.
Every month Peter Honey provides a personal perspective of learning and its importance for both our work and social lives. Dr Peter Honey, FRSA,FCIPD, FIMC is a Chartered Psychologist and founder of Peter Honey Publications. He can be contacted on +44 (0)1628 633946, at peterhoney@peterhoney.com or visit www.peterhoney.com
Readers Comment
Be the first to comment on this news story