16 Apr Happiness in the Global Marketplace
Here’s today’s cultural quiz: The more money you get, the happier you will be. True of false?
If you said false, you are in sync not only with most of the world’s great spiritual leaders, but also much recent sociological and psychological research into the wellsprings of happiness.
In the past two decades, a cascade of studies on the sources of happiness has spilled across university research labs and into mainstream bookstores. The Secrets of Happiness by Richard Schoch, A Brief History of Happiness by Nicholas White, and The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950 by Avner Offer are but a few recent fruits of this cornucopia of happiness studies.
As Lynda Hurst reports (“Don’t Worry, Be Happy … or Not,” Toronto Star, April 1, 2007), much of this research suggests that once people have met their basic needs, more money can buy only more things, not more contentment.
A 2005 University of Southern California study, for example, indicates that that the quality of one’s health and relationships, not increased wealth, are the most stable sources of happiness over a lifetime.
To read the remainder of this happiness article from The Star – just click here.