Blogs
The Expectation of Happiness
I once saw this episode of 60 Minutes about who were the happiest people on the planet. And while I was looking for that story online, I came across a bunch of other studies about happiness by country. But despite all our talk about this kind of romanticizing of hard times and the eternal optimism of Americans, the USA is never ranked very high on lists of happiest places in the world. While our rank fluctuates between 16th (at best) and 23rd (the worst that I’ve found), Denmark is usually listed as the country with the happiest people in the world. And even all these different surveys and studies about happiness give different reasons for why certain people are happier than others (things like health, education, and wealth are usually among the factors), the 60 Minutes is the most intriguing to me.
According to 60 Minutes, Denmark is the happiest place in the world because they don’t really expect anything great out of their lives. Americans are the 23rd happiest people because we want way more out of life than the countries higher on the list. The Danes are content to have things better than they could be—if they’re eating canned soup for dinner, they’re not starving! If they have some lousy desk job, at least they’re working! Their low expectations give most of them nothing to be disappointed about. Americans need more than that. We need giant mansions and world-class educations and adventure.
So by now you may be thinking, how does this have anything to do with anything that we’ve talking about this semester? Well here it is—the reason why Americans make up the 23rd happiest country in the world is the same reason that the bad parts of history are so romanticized, and also the same reason why we, today, have such a hard time understanding how anyone can romanticize such a dismal period in history. Americans expect more out of life than a lot of other people. We expect to be happy. Even when 25% of people are out of work, or kids are hungry, or 2 million people are traveling around homeless, it’s an American’s right to be happy, so they had all these expectations that came with the hardships (freedom, adventure, all that) that some people chose to focus on more than others. Of course, it’s our modern expectations of happiness that hinder our ability to accept these positives. We all expect working hard to lead to jobs and houses and freedom and fun, so we can’t see how the people in the Great Depression couldn’t not be unhappy (sorry about all the negatives).
So maybe if we all just expected less, the people during the Great Depression wouldn’t have been so determined to romanticize it, or we would be more accepting of that romanticization. But would that be worth it? If we didn't expect so much out of life, would we be so affected by these readings? Would we be so critical of the things that happened that let the country get this way, or of the way that it has been represented? Is it worth it to strive for better lives for ourselves and expect our neighbors to do the same, even if it means living a little less happily?
Happy Rant
How does one even assess happiness? Sure, better health care, a job, and money would make us "happy" for a while, but what about when that fades? What about all those lingering emotions that aren't exactly tangible but are supposed to mean something? I'm thinking of all those movies ("Pursuit of Happyness," "Happy Go Lucky," etc.) that try and teach us, the viewer, that "true happiness" is in all the little fleeting details of life, the little happenings in our day that make us smile, so Carpe Diem everybody!
But seriously, happiness isn't something you can measure. And is being the "happiest" country in the world an accomplishment? I guess that maybe it would rule to live in Denmark, but regardless of where you live, or how your government treats you, happiness should be something immeasurable.
Happy Go Lucky
It seems to me that because America is such an individualistic country, there is a lot more weight placed on the attainment of personal happiness. We are all taught that if we work hard enough we can succeed, make lot of money, and as a result, attain happiness for ourselves. We always ask ourselves if we are happy, sometimes not even knowing what would make us feel that way. Happiness, in our culture, is said to be the most important goal of life, yet, no one ever elaborates much on what that means.
In other, more collectivistic cultures, there is no such goal as happiness. Instead, the focus is on duty and family. You don't strive to make yourself happy, you strive to help and respect your elders and family members. Life is more about helping others and being part of a group, while doing your duty within that group, than achieving personal fulfillment. In the Scandinavian countries, everything is universalized, rather than individualized; it is more of a collectivistic community. Health care, for instance is not privatized, but free and open to everyone.
I think that happiness itself is a very American idea, which strangely enough, makes it not surprising that most of us don't attain it. When our expectations are so high, in that we will all reach our dream job, find love, maintain a romantic marriage, and achieve happiness, of course we're bound to be disappointed. Not to be negative, but there's just not enough of the American Dream to go around for everyone.