The paradox of happiness

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…