The Happiness Fallacy — Life’s Greatest Irony
It is a truth universally acknowledged that all living beings must perish in due course. Such is the contract of Life, which Biology has been enforcing from time immemorial. This contract and its direct link to the inevitable might scare most, if not all, human beings throughout history. And yet without them, despair would seep into the world on an unprecedented scale. After all, in a world where immortality is commonplace, what is there to seek?
Suffice to say, Death keeps the world running. Everyone is busy pursuing something before the clock strikes twelve. No matter the pursuit, be it a shiny Nobel medal or a more modest Honda Civic, they all seemingly promise one thing: happiness. And yet, this promise is as fraudulent as capitalism gets.
I’ll be the first to admit that my claim sounded like a shit conspiracy theory a vain 19-year-old came up with. Oh, look at me, too enlightened to pursue happiness like these bozos! But do understand that I am not against happiness, I am against the constant pursuit of obtaining it. However, in a world where progress is expected and complacency is condemned, escaping this cycle is getting more and more difficult.
Ranging from celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain to celebrated poet Sylvia Plath, the fruits of their labor never equated to happiness. They were able to liquidate on financial stability and global recognition, but tragically conned out of their promised happiness. Cases like this are regularly dismissed with the simple saying “Money Cannot Buy Happiness”. Suspiciously, the ones preaching this are the well-off people, particularly celebrities and influencers. As well as their intentions may be, I strongly believe that no street beggar would appreciate being told this “life-changing realization” when begging for a change. Money can certainly buy them scrumptious bread to fill their empty stomachs and make them happier. So why do their happiness recipe differ so substantially?
Recent research has divided subjective well-being — the scientific term for happiness — into two parts: emotional well-being and life evaluation. Emotional well-being refers to the frequency and intensity of our emotions that make our everyday lives either pleasant or unbearable. Life evaluation refers to the subjective thoughts of individuals when asked to evaluate their lives as a whole. Although they seem to have a positive correlation — when one goes up, the other joins suit — this is not always the case. A survey conducted by the great psychologist Daniel Kahneman and economist Angus Deaton best illustrates this conundrum:
Having analyzed the responses of 1,000 Americans to a survey (the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index), it is found that the possession of money only increases one’s life evaluation, but on average has zero impact on one’s emotional well-being. It is, however, worth noting that severe poverty amplifies the effects of one’s misfortunes (illness, death, etc.). For instance, a headache increases the proportion of people reporting sadness and worry on the Well-Being Index from 38% to 70% for the poorest tenth of the participants. For the top two-thirds of the population, the corresponding numbers are19% and 38%: a substantially higher baseline with a higher jump. In conclusion, Money certainly helps these people in need, but past an annual income of $75,000 (could be less in lower living cost areas), the average increase of experienced well-being associated with income is precisely zero.
Can you really blame those celebrities? They based their claim on their own empirical evidence — Gucci slippers, hillside mansion, and millions of followers do not make me happy. They’ve gone above and beyond the $75,000 threshold, where money no longer affects their experienced well-being. Suggestive evidence has been found in another recent study that associates high income with reduced ability to savor small everyday pleasures in life.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the missing piece to the happiness puzzle: the joy in little things. You cannot finish the puzzle with just the big corner chunks; the smaller pieces are necessary to complete it. Appreciating everyday experiences such as drinking your own hand-pressed coffee, buying jeans at a bargain price, or eating a bar of chocolate, all complement the positive emotions we experience in life. In Japan, this joy in living is called “Ikigai”. In his book The Little Book of Ikigai, Ken Mogi explains briefly how Japanese people would go as far as to making the joy in living their very reason to wake up— to tend the fields, enjoy the autumn breeze, converse with neighbors, etc. The term “Ikigai” dates back to the 10th century, when shells (the “gai” in “Ikigai”) were seen as an extremely valuable commodity. Such is the importance of Ikigai in the olden times. This art of living, however, is slowly deteriorating in the 21st century. Due to the rapid progress humans have made over the past 2 centuries, Japan and every other country have deemed efficacy to be the greatest virtue. Why eat your breakfast at home when you can buy a sandwich on your commute to work? Why ride a bicycle to the supermarket when you can use a car? Why write a poem on paper when you can type it out?
In a world so rife with technology and information, the joy in living has been swept under the rug. We would like to think that it is a necessary sacrifice for the collective happiness of humankind, but are we really sure that we are happier than our brothers and sisters in the stone age? Even esteemed historians like Yuval Noah Harari cannot answer with certainty. Perhaps we have grossly underestimated the role of the little things in our life, and we really aren’t better off than our ancient ancestors.
In conclusion, I hope we can experience and appreciate the little things in our lives more. I recently have started taking language classes in pursuit of the little embers of joy I find in them. I hope you can find yours too. For without them, the pursuit of happiness is neverending. And as we live our lives obtaining pieces of the happiness puzzle, we fail to realize the important small ones we’re dropping along the way. And perhaps that, is the greatest irony of all.
