Remember that doomsday report I posted a couple months back? Yah, scratch that. Upon further reflection, it was probably a little too negative. I was succumbing to my university days when I couldn’t get enough bad news – when I seemed to delight in the fact that the world would soon be ending.
Don’t get me wrong – I still think the world is going to end. It’s just a matter of when, and that may not be for a long, long time. And no matter what the Mayan calendar may say, I don’t think it’ll be in 2012 (but never say never!)
A book I just read suggests that no matter how good we have it, humans tend to find something to fret about. And so, in this golden age of abundance, we still worry, complain, and fall into bouts of depression. It’s what Gregg Easterbrook calls The Prosperity Paradox. While life for people in the so-called developed world has steadily gotten better over the last century, we are still no better at realizing happiness.
And things are better, as much as people like to talk of the good ol’ days. Those good ol’ days, in many cases, were not so good. I’m sure the days before electricity came to rural Saskatchewan were okay, but I think most farmers would say electric lighting and satellite TV are still preferred over the days when one had to use an outhouse in -30 degree weather.
Many, many things have improved over the last 50 years. Income levels have improved dramatically. I recently attended a lecture by a university economics professor who indicated that the level of income in Saskatchewan alone has increased by 1% per year in the 1990s and by 1.6% per year over the last 10 years, discounting the impact of inflation. That’s a 25% increase in real income in only 20 years. Of course it may not feel like it’s much because the average worker is only realizing a 1% increase per year – it’s over the long haul that you begin to realize how much more you had than your parents and especially grandparents.
Levels of equality have also improved. The income gap between non-whites and whites has shown the greatest improvement over the last 50 years, but the gap between the poor and rich has also been reduced. As much as the ludicrous pay of CEOs has negated the reduction of this gap, the poor are still less poor than they were 50 years ago in real dollar terms, and are closer in health outcomes to the rich than they have ever been. The wealthy in England tended to live 17 years longer, on average, than a poor peasant one hundred years ago, but now only live two years longer (unless of course you’re Queen Elizabeth - then you may never die).
Equality as it pertains to race, gender and class has improved in spades, along with democratic reforms across the globe (the Arab Spring is a dramatic example of this).
My point is not for us to gloat that we live in this glorious golden age, but to at least recognize that we have it pretty good. Certainly, when we compare ourselves to the squalor facing approximately half of the earth’s population, we can appreciate that.
The interesting point, which Easterbrook explores, is that we simply aren’t any happier for it. While you would expect North Americans to be exploding with joy over our new-found largesse, we are no happier and ever more depressed than fifty years ago.
Of course there are many reasons for this. Notably, increasing the amount of stuff you have does not make you any happier. Researchers have found that people can be made considerably happier by making up to $10,000 per year, but after this point, the returns on happiness are marginal. Now while this may seem like a very low amount compared to our current incomes, it’s important to note that a good portion of the world lives on a dollar a day, which equates to only $365 per year. Increasing this amount to $10,000 amounts to a 27-fold increase. A 27-fold increase in income would make me plenty happy! (For the first little while anyway.)
I also know some people in Ukraine who make less than $10,000 per year, but still have enough to live fairly well (without a car, of course). At the same time, they are more appreciative (and happier) than most North Americans.
A key to happiness, as Easterbrook notes, is one’s sense of gratitude. If you don’t show a sense of gratitude in life, you’re going to be less happy. This is perhaps why we are so unhappy – we are no longer grateful for what we have, as we essentially have everything. We cannot decipher needs from wants any longer, and therefore can never have enough of anything.
Only this could explain why quadriplegics tend to be happier than lottery winners. They’ve learned how to appreciate life with limitations - perhaps one of the greatest challenges of our generation.
