On Happiness
“The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness”
Walk through any book store or search in your favorite search engine and you will be inundated with ways to get “happy” but do these healthy tips really help. The declaration of independence declared are right to pursue our happiness so what the hell happened? Listen to old SweatPant and I’ll tell you what.
The United States ranked 15th on a list of countries happiness with factors such as social support, gdp per capita, and life expectancy all playing a major role. In a nation with high return in all these areas why would Americans overall be less happier than our Canadian cousins to the north? there is a myriad of reasons but today I will explore one excess. In America there never really is a cap on what you can do or explore in any arena, we are very by the book and tend to look at things threw a linear lens college+degree=job=marriage=happy when of course it’s not that clear cut. Bret Ford of the university of California, Berkley conducted a study showing the pursuit of happiness leading to less happiness for Americans due to our cultural view of happiness. I’m not trying to say we Americans can’t get/be happy but damn it’s hard with social norms being more closed off and many of us taking a nimby(not in my brain yuppie) attitude we move further and further from what the study showed to have a positive impact on happiness via culture social relationships.
It all boils down to a person taking self stock and assessment if you aren’t happy find out what is keeping you from that social norms be damned do your own thing just trust me on that one. The last thing you want to do is live your life amongst a whole bunch of miserable people and get the worst hit of all finding out you’re just as miserable as they are
SweatPant out…
