The paradox of happiness
By Giancarlo Melini
A recently conducted survey indicated that the happiest
countries in the world -surprisingly- are the Latinamerican countries.
Even if the accuracy, precision and validity of this sort of "studies"
are questionable, it's still a very interesting topic to analyze.
Although the reasons or factors that produced this unexpected result are
not detailed, I believe there are many variables that must be
considered, as I will explain further. Another odd fact is that the
suicide indexes -per capita- are much higher in industrialized,
developed, rich and educated countries. Few psychological studies have
been done regarding this strange phenomenon, and they show very
interesting results, very hard to imagine for people like us living in
the third world.
But, Why? Why is it that people that live
in poor, violent, unequal, uneducated, unhealthy and corrupt societies
are happier? Why is it that citizens that live in abundance, security,
health and wealth are more propense to commit suicide and live
miserably?
This is a very complicated subject since we are
all conditioned to believe that happiness means material abundance,
therefore rich people should be happy, Right? Wrong! In reality that is
not the case. Please take note that I'm not a specialist on behavioral
sciences, I'm just trying to extract conclussions from my own experience
and knowledge.
Let us address the issue from the
Latinamerican perspective first: in order to find the reason of why
people are so happy in this continent, we must consider some factors.
First, even though there are high indexes of inequality, poverty,
violence and deprivation in this region, family life is still extremely
important in Latin culture. In industrialized countries, the young
people’s primary objective is to emancipate and live by themselves as
soon as possible. A culture of people living alone may cause a low level
of joy since humans are social beings; loneliness is just not a natural
condition. On the other hand, in Latinamerica people often leave their
home if and only if they are ready to start another family, so the
individual is always surrounded by the companionship of their dearest. Second,
and most important I believe, is a much less romantic idea. Ignorant
people, who understand nothing about their environment and have no
notion of reality, a little glimpse of how the world works, tend to
delude themselves into a state of mind that I would like to call innocent happiness, childlike
if you will. Because of this, they tend to describe themselves as
"satisfied", "fulfilled" of their surrounding conditions, all because of
their naivety. Suffering and pain are a given for ignorant people, that
is just the way life is, sadly. On the opposite side, educated
and intelligent people who are much more conscious about their
surroundings, aware of the aberrant behavior that repeats around the
world, find it very difficult to describe themselves as "happy" when
themselves, and/or people they interact with, live in constant suffering
and pain. Since Latinamerican people are less educated in average, I
believe that their foolishness is what drives them to "find happiness".
Ignorant and naive people live in a bubble that protects them from
understanding the atrocities of the outer, real and complicated world.
So, under this paradigm I have to give credit to George Orwell's 1984: "Ignorance is strength".
Now,
about the high suicide rates in the developed countries, I believe that
killing oneself propensity is mainly caused by these reasons:
1)
In a society where satisfying the most basic needs is practically a
given, people have much more time to worry about other not so important,
simple-miniscule-silly things. Financial issues or love affairs for
example. In an industrialized country, even if a person has no income,
there’s no chance he or she will starve to death or end homeless -this
is changing right now, tragically- since the socio-economic system
provides a safety net that ensures the well being of every particular
citizen (Scandinavian countries and Germany are a good example). Because
of this, people’s fear of what they’re going to do for surviving
tomorrow gets replaced by preoccupations like how much money they are
making compared to their neighbors, how are they going to cover their
next mortgage payment for their four-bedroom house, or how can they
afford their new year’s trip to Disneyland. In contrast, in
underdeveloped countries people are grateful and feel lucky just because
they’re still alive, just because they have another day to spend with
their dear friends and family, or joyful because they have a little food
to provide for their seven-member family. Poor people extract happiness
from the simplest things in life, and that actually makes them
wealthier. Rich is not the one that has more, but the one that needs
less;
2) We’re empathic social beings, we like/need to
relate with others who share the same feelings, thoughts and lifestyles.
Other studies have demonstrated that the Nordic countries are amongst
the happiest in the world, but paradoxically they also have relatively
high indexes of suicide. My own hypothesis is that this happens because
in these countries, when a person finds himself in a difficult
situation, depressed, unhappy, feels extremely alone since there's no
empathy because everybody around him is happy. Having no one to relate
with is extremely painful, and see that everyone around is happy except
one, could be a very valid motive to commit suicide. In underdeveloped
countries, the situation is different, when people are suffering
excruciating pain, they only have to look around to find people that are
in the same or worse conditions. This ability to compare and bound with
others that are in similar situations, is what helps people overcome
the desire of suicide in third world countries. It’s worse to be sad and
alone, than sad in and accompanied.
So, the paradox of
happiness is a very interesting topic and I hope that experienced
psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists dig deeper into this
matter so it is easier for everyone to comprehend the true root cause of
happiness. Meanwhile, I wish you all to live happily ever after…
