National Happiness Leads to a Better Nation

What would it take to make you happy? More money, a sexy spouse, a bigger house, a better job? Would you be surprised to find out that these answers - while typical - don't truly equal happiness, both at the personal and national level?

An excerpt from Arthur Brooks' book, "Gross National Happiness", in the August edition of Reader's Digest takes a provocative look at our happiness as citizens, and how it affects the prosperity of our nation. After all, the Founding Fathers included this phrase in our Declaration of Independence, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as an inalienable right of man. Did the Founding Fathers know something about the importance of happiness - not success, money, or career - that we have somehow forgotten to embrace? Brooks emphatically states that he believes our Founding Fathers believed in "the ability of its citizens to pursue and achieve happiness [as] a measure of the effectiveness and morality of the state". He adds,

To hear politicians talk about gross domestic product, health-care reform, and Social Security, you’d think that this nation’s Founding Fathers held as self-evident that we are endowed by our Creator with the ability to purchase new, high-quality consumer durables each and every year, or to enjoy healthy economic growth with low inflation and full employment.

Basing his conclusions on reliable surveys conducted on thousands of people across the U.S., Brooks came to this conclusion: "... happy people increase our prosperity and strengthen our communities. They make better citizens -- and better citizens are vital to making our nation healthy and strong. Happiness, in other words, is important for America." Survey results show that happiness levels for Americans have remained relatively constant since 1972, at about 30% of the population. Those that reported not being happy also remained constant at about 13%. So in spite of all the many changes and technological advances in society and people's lives over the past 36 years, the average level of happiness has basically remained unchanged. So what are the key predictors of happiness? Hold on to your seats, because some of you may be (un)pleasantly surprised! # 1 Key Predictor to Happiness: FAITH

Roughly 85 percent of Americans identify with a religion, and about a third of Americans attend a house of worship every week or more. These statistics have changed relatively little over the decades. By international standards, America’s level of religious practice is exceptionally high. In Holland, for example, just 9 percent of the population attends church on a regular basis; in France, it’s 7 percent; in Latvia, 3 percent.

# 2 Key Predictor to Happiness: WORK

Contrary to widely held opinion, most Americans like or even love their work. In 2002 an amazing 89 percent of workers said they were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their jobs. This isn’t true just for those with high-paying, highly skilled jobs but for all workers across the board. And the percentage is almost exactly the same among those with and without college degrees and among those working for private companies, nonprofit organizations, and the government.

# 3 Key Predictor to Happiness: MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

One 2003 study that followed 24,000 people for more than a decade documented a significant increase in happiness after people married. For some, the happiness increase wore off in a few years, and they ended up back at their premarriage happiness levels. But for others, it lasted as long as a lifetime.

What about having kids? While children, on their own, don’t appear to raise the happiness level (they actually tend to slightly lower the happiness of a marriage), studies suggest that children are almost always part of an overall lifestyle of happiness, which is likely to include such things as marriage and religion.

# 4 Key Predictor to Happiness: CHARITY

People who give money to charity are 43 percent more likely than nongivers to say they’re very happy. Volunteers are 42 percent more likely to be very happy than nonvolunteers. It doesn’t matter whether the gifts of money go to churches or symphony orchestras; religious giving and secular giving leave people equally happy, and far happier than people who don’t give. Even donating blood, an especially personal kind of giving, improves our attitude.

# 5 Key Predictor to Happiness: FREEDOM

Not all types of freedom are the same in terms of happiness, however. Researchers have shown that economic freedom brings happiness, as does political and religious freedom. On the other hand, moral freedom -- a lack of constraints on behavior -- does not. People who feel they have unlimited moral choices in their lives when it comes to matters of sex or drugs, for example, tend to be unhappier than those who do not feel they have so many choices in life.

Individually, you may or may not agree with each of the predictors included in this list. You may not even agree than your - and your neighbor's - happiness, truly has anything to do with our nation's success. But how many happy people do you know who commit crimes, steal, kill, destroy, or start wars? Does living on a hand-out make you happy, or striving to succeed bring greater joy? Does ignorance really generate bliss, or does knowledge empower you to make choices that generate happiness? Are people who must live in repressed societies, communist countries, or under tyranny happy? Conversely, what good deeds do happy people commit in order to bring joy to others? Or more specifically, what would you do to ensure the prosperity of our country if you were truly happy?