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People in developing countries are happier than before while people in
developed countries are not happier than they used to be. Why? What lesson can
you learn from it?
Financially speaking, people are supposed to be happier when their incomes
exceed expenses, but the reverse seems to be happening to many people in some
developed countries. In comparison, people in some developing countries with a
much lower measure of per capita income appear to be happier in what they are
actually able to buy within their earnings. The message seems clear enough:
higher living standards do not necessarily add to happiness but excessive
spending can certainly undermine it.
It is hard to tell what does bring happiness when wealth may ironically
fail as much as poverty. In countries full of comforts and luxuries, there are
chances that people are beginning to count their troubles in the presence of
rising living costs. This is very unlike people in developing countries who make
positive sense of life by counting blessings and joys. Even in rich countries,
life may become more stressful and less enjoyable under the pressure of
increasingly higher living standards from time to time. What is worse, job
security is already a major concern particularly among less skilled employees
who are nervous about impending layoffs. Besides, the reality of financial
crisis is spreading from one developed country to another, further complicating
the difficult situation and fueling the anger of many less happy people.
People in most developing countries have reasons to feel happier than
before, probably because they live their lives forward. Being relatively poor,
they are happier in knowing who they really are, then doing what they need to do
in order to have what they want. To them happiness is more like a direction for
motivation than a place for leisure. Also, they are more capable of recognizing
and appreciating what they do have. In short, they feel happier exactly because
they do not expect too much happiness. This mentality is different from people
in developing countries who have large incomes but also large expenses, often
resulting in negative balance sheets.
In sum, the only way to avoid being unhappy in life, whether referring to a
developed country or a developing country, is to have happy thoughts about
living within their means and having something to hope for. Per capita income
can no longer be the only measure for economic happiness, judging from the fact
that people in developed countries are not as happy as they used to be. Without
any doubt, the lesson about being happy is for an individual as well as for a
country to perform a balancing act between incomes and expenses. |
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发表于 2016-7-10 15:20:40