Wealth vs Happiness
Pursuing happiness is what every person in this world works towards. The article Wealth and Happiness attempts to identify some of the elements of society that are linked to the overall levels of happiness in that society. The article explains that the traditional assumption is that wealth correlates directly with happiness, and that recent studies suggest that while wealth plays a role it is actually a relatively minor factor.
According to Wealth and Happiness some of the leading contributors to increased happiness in society include freedom, acceptance, and gratitude. Previous studies had only linked wealth to happiness because they had only examined levels of wealth in proportion to happiness without considering other factors that may have influenced the data. An interesting concept is that of “diminishing returns to economic progress” – that means that after a certain point of economic development, further economic development will have less and less impact on the happiness of society.
Another interesting concept is the link between gratitude and happiness; the act of reflecting and being thankful seems to improve one’s happiness significantly. This is true in both the large scale of society and on the small scale of our personal everyday lives. The article suggests that religion, or any similar positive belief system, can play a very large role in this aspect of happiness.
As global citizens we must ask ourselves how we should balance our efforts to achieve world happiness; at what point should a wealthy country stop focusing on developing itself and begin to focus on helping other countries? Because of diminishing returns it would make logical sense that after a certain point it would be counter-productive to advance ones own society beyond its current state if it is already very well off.
The quest for happiness will always be ongoing both on a global scale and on a personal scale for all of us. On the global scale, it is up to great scientists and philosophers to theorize about what elements make societies happy and implement those ideas into communities throughout the world. On the personal scale, it is up to each individual person to take the time to think about their own happiness and realize what makes them happy. As the article Wealth and Happiness suggests, it is the person that has learned to be grateful for what they already have that will be happier in life than the person who is always wanting more.