Life Being Brutish, Nasty & Short
3/18/06
Psst, don't tell anyone, especially any inhabitant of a consumer driven economy but studies show that rich people are not necessarily happier than poor people. We appear to be born with a certain "happiness" set point, much like our weight and no matter how much stuff we own or acoutrements in our lives, the ability to feel satisfaction seems to be more the result of the H=S+V+C equation. S being our set points or genetic propensity for the feeling, V being our involvement in voluntary activities and C equalling our circumstances in life, poverty being one huge detriment to the H product. This according to 2 books reviewed in the New Yorker. Amazingly, a study showed that a person who wins the lottery and another rendered paraplegic will, after a year, return to their original "happiness" setpoints, whatever those were. Hmmm, win 37 million bucks or lose a leg, no matter, you're destined to feel a certain level of happiness no matter what fate brings you. Wow.
This reminds me of an anecdote about an American developer who travels to Latin America and counsels a successful fisher man that he could make a lot more money if he expanded his fleet beyond one boat. Why? teh fisherman asks. So that I can work hard for many years and eventually retire to spend time with my wife, watch the sunsets, play my guitar and relax, which I already get to do every day with my single daily catch?
Here we are, a nation fixated on the next "fix", nip and tuck, get rich or thin quick scheme and 20% of us are diagnostically "depressed." We have more access to more resources and opportunities then arguably anyone on the planet, but keep chasing some elusives something other. I love the irony of people dying in the desert to enter our country for a better life and those of us with the money, investing in those very sending countries to buy homes and a "simpler" life. And those very immigrants, whom we love to blame for our nation's ills, despite their low literacy, poor economic status and lack of access to health care, it turns out live 7 years longer than us whites, even with the diseases that come with poverty. A researcher at UCLA posits that there must be something about their life-style, including the emphasis on family and faith that prolongs and protects life. The Latino communities where I live bustle with life and street commerce, unlike so many gated communities and Hollywood homes nestled behind barriers and fences. Does this afford a support system, a commraderie, an esprit de corps that acts as a prophylactic agaisnt teh racsim and prejudice they face daily? Does their faith en Dios give them that placebo effect when facing an illness, which we critically thinking, analytical types lack? Prayer, it's been shown, is the number "alternative therapy" in use in the U.S. and studies have shown women with breast cancer do better when a group of unbeknownst strangers pray for them.
So, maybe instead of going shopping for the next whatever, we should stop, take a deep breath, meditate on what we do have, or take a neighbor out for coffee, volunteer at the local library, "cultivate our gardens", suivant Voltaire. But don't tell this administration I said that; they're too busy trying to sell you (and teh world) the American dream of democracy with all of its purchasing power and our individual inalienable right to "pursue happiness." Wouldn't want anyone to figure out that the H formula has nothing to do with credit cards, caramel machiattos or Condoleeza's criteria for Iranian containment. Shhhh.
Psst, don't tell anyone, especially any inhabitant of a consumer driven economy but studies show that rich people are not necessarily happier than poor people. We appear to be born with a certain "happiness" set point, much like our weight and no matter how much stuff we own or acoutrements in our lives, the ability to feel satisfaction seems to be more the result of the H=S+V+C equation. S being our set points or genetic propensity for the feeling, V being our involvement in voluntary activities and C equalling our circumstances in life, poverty being one huge detriment to the H product. This according to 2 books reviewed in the New Yorker. Amazingly, a study showed that a person who wins the lottery and another rendered paraplegic will, after a year, return to their original "happiness" setpoints, whatever those were. Hmmm, win 37 million bucks or lose a leg, no matter, you're destined to feel a certain level of happiness no matter what fate brings you. Wow.
This reminds me of an anecdote about an American developer who travels to Latin America and counsels a successful fisher man that he could make a lot more money if he expanded his fleet beyond one boat. Why? teh fisherman asks. So that I can work hard for many years and eventually retire to spend time with my wife, watch the sunsets, play my guitar and relax, which I already get to do every day with my single daily catch?
Here we are, a nation fixated on the next "fix", nip and tuck, get rich or thin quick scheme and 20% of us are diagnostically "depressed." We have more access to more resources and opportunities then arguably anyone on the planet, but keep chasing some elusives something other. I love the irony of people dying in the desert to enter our country for a better life and those of us with the money, investing in those very sending countries to buy homes and a "simpler" life. And those very immigrants, whom we love to blame for our nation's ills, despite their low literacy, poor economic status and lack of access to health care, it turns out live 7 years longer than us whites, even with the diseases that come with poverty. A researcher at UCLA posits that there must be something about their life-style, including the emphasis on family and faith that prolongs and protects life. The Latino communities where I live bustle with life and street commerce, unlike so many gated communities and Hollywood homes nestled behind barriers and fences. Does this afford a support system, a commraderie, an esprit de corps that acts as a prophylactic agaisnt teh racsim and prejudice they face daily? Does their faith en Dios give them that placebo effect when facing an illness, which we critically thinking, analytical types lack? Prayer, it's been shown, is the number "alternative therapy" in use in the U.S. and studies have shown women with breast cancer do better when a group of unbeknownst strangers pray for them.
So, maybe instead of going shopping for the next whatever, we should stop, take a deep breath, meditate on what we do have, or take a neighbor out for coffee, volunteer at the local library, "cultivate our gardens", suivant Voltaire. But don't tell this administration I said that; they're too busy trying to sell you (and teh world) the American dream of democracy with all of its purchasing power and our individual inalienable right to "pursue happiness." Wouldn't want anyone to figure out that the H formula has nothing to do with credit cards, caramel machiattos or Condoleeza's criteria for Iranian containment. Shhhh.
posted by Barbery at 8:45 PM
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