One of these rare and fortunate opportunities to post a guest contribution has arisen again. A very dear and inspiring person to me, Hoyt Anderson, wrote a paper on The Pursuit of Happiness. The very American concept spelled out right in the beginning of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. As part of his paper he reviewed The Geography of Bliss, a book authored by National Public Radio's (NPR) veteran foreign correspondent Eric Weiner. For the book, Weiner roamed the globe to find out how happiness looks outside home. For his paper Hoyt Anderson captured the highlights of Weiner's view of how Americans perceive happiness.
AMERICA* – Happiness Is Home
Erik Weiner lives in Miami which is associated with happiness if not paradise itself. He tells of a billboard there advertising a yellow convertible V.W. Beetle with these words “Woe isn’t you. Dare to be happy”. American happiness isn’t left to the gods or to fortune, as was the case for most of human history. No, happiness is there for the taking . All we need is enough will power to summon it, enough gumption to try it in the first place, and, of course, enough cash to afford a convertible V. W. Beetle.
America’s place on the happiness spectrum is not as high as you might think, given our superpower status. We are not by any means the happiest nation on earth. One study by Adrian White at the University of Leicester in [Great] Britain ranked the United States as twenty-third happiest nation on earth behind Costa Rica, Malta and Malaysia . It is safe to say that the United States is not as happy as it is wealthy. Since 1960, the divorce rate has doubled, the teen suicide rate has tripled, the violent crime rate has quadrupled. There are increases in rates of depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. What about all that money? Basic survival is not an issue for most Americans. Wealthy Americans are only slightly happier than poorer ones. As a nation we are three times richer than we were in 1950 yet no happier.
One dynamic are rising expectations. We compare ourselves not to the America of 1950 but to the America of today. And more specifically, to our neighbors of today. We give lip service to the notion that money can’t buy happiness but act as if it does. When asked what would improve the quality of their lives, Americans' number one answer was money, according to a University of Michigan study. By telling us that happiness lives inside us the self help industry hasn’t helped us because it focuses us inward when we should be looking outward to other people, to community and human bonds –- not to money. We are able to acquire many of the things that we think will make us happy and therefore suffer confusion and disappointment when they don’t.
America is a profoundly optimistic nation. Two thirds of Americans say they are optimistic about the future.
No other nation’s founding document so prominently celebrates happiness. But The Declaration Of Independence only enshrines the right to the pursuit of happiness. It’s up to us to catch it.
One way Americans pursue happiness is by physically moving. Ours is a nation founded on restlessness. Even the Pilgrims were hedonic refugees searching for happiness somewhere else. Our much heralded frontier spirit is simply a yearning for a happier place. The ability to choose where we live is, in the scheme of human history, a very recent phenomenon. Historically most people live where they were planted.
The mobility of Americans makes many of them hedonistic floaters whose perpetual search for a happier place prevents them from making permanent commitments and this can be a dangerous thing. We can’t love a place or a person if we always have one foot out the door. This calls to mind an Icelander’s observation that you can identify your true home by answering the simple question, “Where do you want to die?”
To illustrate the kinds of considerations –- the “calculations“ –- that are involved in finding “the right place” he follows the decision process of his friend Cynthia. She didn’t want anyplace flat, either topographically or culturally. She wanted four seasons but a temperate environment. Low humidity gives her headaches so that eliminated places like Arizona and New Mexico. Food was important too. She needed regular access to not only feta cheese but “a variety of feta cheeses”. She is a nature photographer so she needed to be close to the natural world. She needed an arts scene and live music and other signs of cultural life. She wanted a peaceful place of “human size” -- not a large city with crime and traffic problems. With all of these considerations in mind her decision was more intuitive than rational. She selected Asheville, North Carolina and she moved there. Weiner asked her if she was happy in her new home. “Yes”, she says. She likes the fact that she can get anywhere in fifteen minutes. She likes the mountains, so close and embracing. She likes the fact that she can see an opera or a theater performance. It doesn’t meet all of her criteria. It isn’t near any large body of water and there is no major airport -- but even paradise requires some compromises.
Weiner asked Cynthia if Asheville was home. She hesitated briefly. Then with a lack of commitment she said: “I’ve lived here for twenty years so I guess this is home. All the parts I care about are here.”
The problem with finding paradise is that others might find it too. And that is what’s happening with Asheville. Word is out that this is a great place to live. Asheville is on the cusp. It could go the way other places have gone –- from quiet village to “greedy, uptight anywhere.” Paradise is a moving target.
*The term "America" was introduced and used by Weiner in his book when referring to the United States; Hoyt Anderson uses it interchangeably with the term United States.
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