Igger1209

TIME

BY GABRIELLE LEUNG

rom a young age, I’ve always been asked the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The teacher or parent would look down at me with a

horribly fake smile plastered on their face, waiting, as if expecting me, a five-year-old, to know exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t even know that Santa wasn’t real, let alone have my entire future planned out. My interests ranged from making play-doh sculptures to cutting off all the hair on my Barbie’s. Basically, I was nowhere near qualified to answer the dreaded question. But I answered it, alright. From kindergarten to eighth grade, I had a variety of answers: I wanted to be a firefighter, a teacher, a dentist, a vet, and even a hippie (yes, I had just learned about the counterculture of the 1960’s in my history class). And then high school hit me. Suddenly things got more realistic, and I was terrified of what lay ahead of me. I wished I could go back to the easy days of my childhood, when shouting out, “I want to be a princess!” was acceptable As my junior year at high school comes to an end, I’ve realized one thing: I just want to be happy. I don’t want to study a major just because I know it’ll land me a job straight out of college. I want a job that I’m passionate about. I want a job that I’ll enjoy, not a job that was only easy to get. Not a job I’ll dread going to every morning. Not a job that’s dull and repetitive. I want to be happy.

Happy, happy, happy. Like me, hundreds of thousands of Americans seek for happiness in their lives. And in a country so abundant with freedoms and opportunities, it shouldn’t be a surprise. According to Forbes magazine, the United States is the richest country in the entire world. We are rich with material wealth, rich with diversity, and rich with pride. Why, then, have “Americans who identify themselves as optimists” plummeted “from 79% to 50%” since 2004, according to Jeffrey Kluger, senior writer at TIME magazine? Why is it that the United States is ranked the 17th happiest country, following behind most European countries and even Mexico? Thus the Problem Begins

In “The Happiness of Pursuit”, Kluger argues that it’s extremely difficult for Americans to achieve happiness. Americans have “the pursuit-of-happiness impulse” that was first introduced in the Declaration of Independence, but has been evident in humans since the discovery of the New World. Kluger found that Americans have “the urge to find lusher land just over the hill [or] the fatter buffalo in the next valley.” Once they have achieved something, it stimulates them to want more. Kluger writes

but what happens to a breed of people hardwired by genes or culture or both to build, build, build when most of the building is done? What happens when the sprinting dog actually catches the car? The first moon landing—Apollo 11—was a very big deal,

F

The Endless Pursuit of Happiness

BY GABRIELLE LEUNG

THE ENDLESS PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

something we had pursued like nothing else. But Apollo 12? Sort of a letdown

Rather than acknowledge that a goal has been achieved, Americans move on to pursue something else. Kluger argues that the “pursuit of happiness, once an ideal, has become a big business but not an especially effective one; plenty of other countries are doing a lot better than we are without trying so hard.” Americans spend too much time pursuing “happiness” when they may have already achieved it. It has to do with a broader cultural concern however; Americans don’t even know what happiness is anymore. In today’s society, teens and adults alike spend too much time on social media. Just walking down the hallways of high school, I’m aware of students left and right of me with their iphones whipped out, scrolling through meaningless posts on Facebook, or refreshing their feed on Instagram. I’m guilty of it, too. But this overexposure to technology actually makes us less happy. I remember a conversation I had with my friend a few months ago. She was venting about how miserable her life was, for she had just seen pictures a girl in our grade, Jenn, had uploaded from her vacation to Cancun. I told my friend that the trip she went on was a small, insignificant, event that made it on her Facebook page and she must have a lot of other stuff happening in her life we didn’t know about. But my friend shook her head and said it wasn’t possible that Jenn’s life could be bad. I mean, look at her profile picture, wasn’t she absolutely stunning? Weren’t her pictures from Homecoming perfect and didn’t her boyfriend seem so sweet and charming? It surprised me how oblivious my friend was and how Facebook was able to deceive and manipulate her in such a way. The conversation proves to show that Facebook ultimately makes us less happy—we see only the good things in a person’s life. People won’t post that they got fired from their job or failed their chemistry test. They post that they went to an exotic place for vacation, attended a party, went to a concert, or got into their dream college (I just love seeing those “Harvard University Class of 2018!” statuses). And since Facebook—and the internet in general—is such a large part of American’s lives, we’ve become so obsessed with other peoples’ lives and sculpting our own to make it seem pristine, that we lose touch of what’s actually important. Our own, individual, happiness. Like Kluger argued, Americans have the “pursuit-of-happiness impulse.” With Facebook readily available at the click of a button, the pursuit is easier. Teens might try to live their lives a certain way in order to fit the mold of what a “cool” person is like on Facebook, just because they think it’ll bring them happiness. Adults may realize that all their college friends are having children and feel the pressure to start a family, too. They think it’ll bring them happiness, for doesn’t that friend seem so much happier with a newborn girl in her life? On social media, it’s easy to post every flattering picture, every vacation photo, and every new car bought—all are motivated by a “look-at-me impulse”. All are motivated by the desire to impress. Kluger cites Ryan Howell, a psychologist at San Francisco State University, who in 2012 conducted a study of 1,000 participants. He discovered that the more a purchase was motivated by only an effort to impress other people, the less happy a person was. In a culture as wealthy as the United States, there is a

greater opportunity for that to happen and a sudden letdown that ensues when the happiness never comes. Howell intends to solve the

Social Media Takeover The majority of Americans use Facebook over any other kind of social networking site problem by saying, “Would you still engage in this experience if you could tell no one about it?” The problem is not Facebook itself, for there are many positive aspects of this social networking site. Reconnecting with old friends, staying in touch with relatives all over the world, and easily friending the person you met a few hours ago has never been so easy. Americans spend too much time on social media, however, and fail to spend that time interacting with loved ones and building strong family and community bonds. Can you imagine what would happen if you put down your phone and instead went outside to enjoy nature—yes, there is such thing as grass, sun, birds!—or picked up a new hobby? What if you talked, actually talked, face to face, with a family member or friend? I for one would rather listen to the sound of my friend’s laugh then receive a text message of “LOL”. The Flaw in the Pursuit

The pursuit of happiness, encouraged by social media and seemingly vital in American culture, is flawed. Craig Lambert, deputy editor of Harvard Magazine cites Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness and professor of psychology, in his article “The Science of Happiness”

we’re not supposed to be happy all the time. We want that, but nature designed us to have emotions for a reason. Emotions are a primitive signaling system. What good is a compass if it’s always stuck on north? It must be able to fluctuate. You’re supposed to be moving through these emotional states. Happiness is a noun, so we think it’s something we can own. But happiness is a place to visit, not a place to live. It’s like the child’s idea that

if you drive far and fast enough you can get to the horizon—no, the horizon’s not a place you get to

Americans continuously seek a happiness they can’t always have. They keep pursuing a certain level of happiness, but, according to Lambert, “hold fast to a number of wrong ideas about what will make them happy. Ironically, these misconceptions may be evolutionary necessities.” Lambert argues that children do not actually make a person happier, yet “imagine a species that figured out that children don’t make you happy. We have a word for that species: extinct. There is a conspiracy between genes and culture to keep us in the dark about the real sources of happiness. If a society realized that money would not make people happy, its economy would grind to a halt.” Indeed, it is found that earning more money, to a certain extent, does not make a person happier. John de Graaf, executive director of Take Back Your Time and co-founder of The Happiness Initiative, found that Bhutan, considered one of the happiest countries in the world, measured nine domains that affect happiness. Included were: psychological well-being, physical health, work-life balance, education, cultural vitality, social connection, environmental quality, quality of governance, and material well-being. Notice that nowhere in the domains was wealth or income mentioned. de Graaf writes, “For poor nations, happiness tends to rise quickly as purchasing power and standard of living increases. But past a certain level of income, the curve of increased satisfaction flattens and eventually becomes a straight line. It may even begin to decline.” In the United States, surveys even show that there has been a slight downward trend over the past century, even though there has been a tripling of average incomes. Money is proven not to make us happy, but we keep working longer hours to earn more. Children are proven not to make us happy, but that doesn’t stop people from having more. Social media is proven not to make us happy yet, tell me, when was the last time you saw a person not glued to their phone? If America seems to be doing everything wrong at the moment, what even is a happy country?

Welcome to Denmark, Folks

In “Denmark Is Considered The Happiest Country. You’ll Never Guess Why”, Meredith Melnick explains why this country is the happiest in the world. One includes “Denmark supports parents.” Melnick found that “while American women scrape by with an average maternal leave of 10.3 weeks, Danish families receive a total of 52 weeks of parental leave.” Not only do mothers return to their previous level of employment at a 20% higher rate than American women, but gender equality is also prioritized. Melnick cites Katie J.M. Baker, who explored gender politics in Denmark. She argues, “Unlike in America, where bestsellers goad already overworked and underpaid women to Lead In even further, the assumption in Denmark is that feminism is a collective goal, not an individual pursuit.” This “collective goal” leads to the wider cultural phenomenon of Danes feeling responsibility to one another. They do not prioritize social security and safety so they can receive benefits; they have a civic duty that results

The Happy Buddhist Kingdom The people of Bhutan have developed the concept of Gross National Happiness and want to figure out how to measure it, how to enhance it through government and social policies, and how to educate themselves about the behaviors that lead to greater joy in a “high rate of volunteerism.” This “real sense of collective responsibility and belonging” is one that is lacking in America, where individuals strive to benefit themselves before others. Let’s Get Happy

It would be a stretch to think that American women will suddenly get more weeks of parental leave, for it would take years and even decades for such a change to occur. What, then, can Americans do to get happier—quick? Claudia Wallis, author in TIME magazine, reveals that performing an act of altruism or kindness is a happiness booster. Visiting nursing homes, writing letters to grandparents, mowing a neighbor’s lawn—all acts are proven to lift a person’s mood. When people volunteer, not only do they distract themselves from their own existence, but they put meaning into their lives by giving. Wallis cites Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California at Riverside who found that when people used gratitude journals—diaries in which people wrote down things they were thankful for— had an increased satisfaction with their lives over a period of six weeks, for they were able

to “conscientiously count their blessings.” Wallis then cites David Lykken, a researcher at the University of Minnesota, who concludes that there are three essential components of happiness: getting more pleasure out of life, becoming more engaged in what you do, and finding ways of making your life feel more meaningful. While researchers like Lykken and Peterson are more focused on how an individual can become happier, John de Graaf is focuses on policies that would promote overall happiness in the United States over a period of time. Policies he believes should be promoted include paid family leave, paid sick days, paid vacation time, and the choice of a shorter work-time. Americans currently work 200 to 400 hours more each year than Europeans do, yet numerous countries in Europe still continue to outrank the United States as happier countries. While de Graaf does concede that “a good job with a living wage that contributes to society and provides for one’s family is central to a happy life”, he also explains that “more is not always better and 50 hours a week is not better than 40 or 32, especially when we are sacrificing our health and social connection.” The policies he hopes to implement will make families and communities stronger, reduce impact on the environment, and increase the use of public transit. Maybe we’ll Beat Mexico

America has one of the strongest and largest militaries in the world. It is a melting pot of different races and religions. It is

a place of freedom, a land of opportunities. And although it is not a miserable country, or even a sad one, it has the potential to be one of the happiest countries in the world. With a little more time spent with family and loved ones and a little less time spent on social media, America might be on the right track. Measuring Happiness The 2012 World Happiness Report reveals that the five happiest countries in the world are all in Europe