A Brief History of Happiness: How America Lost Track of the Good Life—and Where to Find It Now

[marmar]

from YES! Magazine:


A Brief History of Happiness: How America Lost Track of the Good Life—and Where to Find It Now
For decades, we've been taught that economic growth and buying more stuff will make us happy—while trashing the planet. The good news is, there’s a better kind of happy: It starts with meaningful work, loving relationships, and a thriving natural world.


Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Sustainable Happiness: Live Simply, Live Well, Make a Difference, an anthology of work from YES! Magazine.

In the last 100 years, we got very confused about happiness. This is no small thing. The way we define happiness drives what we do, what we’re willing to sacrifice, and how we spend our money and our time.

This confusion didn’t just happen. Advertisers spend billions spreading the illusion that more stuff will bring us happiness. And policy wonks of all political stripes—but especially those connected to business interests—spread the message that economic growth leads to well-being. Both are false promises that have instead been undermining the very conditions that could lead to sustainable happiness.

Sustainable happiness is built on a healthy natural world and a vibrant and fair society. It is a form of happiness that endures, through good and bad times, because it starts with the fundamental requirements and aspirations of being human. You can’t obtain it with a quick fix; sustainable happiness cannot be achieved at the expense of others.

The good news is that sustainable happiness is achievable, it could be available to everyone, and it doesn’t have to cost the planet. It begins by assuring that everyone can obtain a basic level of material security. But beyond that, more stuff isn’t the key to happiness. ..................(more)

http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/how-america-lost-track-of-the-good-life-and-where-to-find-it-now

[RKP5637]

1. K&R! n/t

[jwirr]

2. The simple life. One of my family was going out the door to work and let me know how much she

hated it. I told her why I loved the work I did before I retired. Because it was what I liked to do. She needs to find a job she likes to do even if it means going to school.

[hollysmom]

4. it is not always that easy - I would apply for a job I loved

But for some explainable reason - in every job I had, I would be promoted into management - a job I stunk at and hated - but company after company would force me into this role

Even when I sold my self as a consultant system designer, I would come in and be promoted to project manager. every.single.time. I know I wanted to sell myself as a professional and a calm and reliable person and be non-offensive no matter what else the employees would to to try and discredit me (seriously, one employee dragged me into a sexual discrimination suit when the particular person never ever seemed to discriminated that way, so I look like a traitor to women when I never witnessed anything wrong between them or the manager who felt threatened and would make jokes about me and how I worked my way up the ladder using sexual favors so to speak)

Loved designing systems or even coding, hated managing or even dealing with other people. I refused promotions and was told I had no choice. I even had a hiring contract which stated I would never be promoted into management, and - well, they said too bad, they needed me in that job.

[jwirr]

5. Yes, that is another problem with working. You find the job you love and you are good at it. Then

just because of that fact the company wants to promote you. I have seen social workers and medical professionals who want to work with people pushed into desk jobs they hate. I am not sure how to deal with that problem.

[closeupready]

12. They do that, in part, because moving you to exempt from non-exempt means no OT $$.

Thus, they can make you work more for less, effectively.

[hollysmom]

13. Well, I made the money.

In the old days they gave me raises - the last one even with more responsibility, they could not give me a raise, so they made me a vice president and I got another week of vacation - 6 weeks in all. Heh.
ut when the company was sold to Mellon, everyone earned less money. I earned more than my boss and possibly his boss. I also had a title greater than theirs, ha ha. And more vacation - that used to rankle them, so they kept giving me more people to supervise. I went from 8 to 16 to 24 to 118. At that point I had no time to do work that I was also responsible for, I was the only person who knew an old system they had, I tried to document it for the next person when I was laid off but they cut my access, so I just left. I was trying to print out the on-line documentation because I know people can never find anything on-line and people kept forgetting I kept that system alive until I was out sick and the client complained. They laid off so many people, I am not sure there was even had anyone left for the client to complain to.

[rhett o rick]

3. k&r. Thanks for posting. I encourage everyone to support "Yes!" magazine. nm

[Bluenorthwest]

6. I like what it is trying to say, really dislike the 'things were better 100 years ago' meme.

To claim that society used to be all fair and vibrant and then adverting and policy wonks changed all that is a claim that requires one to address the racism, sexism and homophobia that in reality defined that long ago utopia where the author thought all was fair and vibrant. Gay people in hiding or in jail or in mental wards, 100 years ago was 1915, 65 confirmed lynchings of African Americans, not to mention Leo Frank.
January 12, 1915 Congress rejected giving women the right to vote but apparently did so in a vibrant and fair way.
Typhoid Mary, 'Birth of a Nation'.
Internationally, poison gas in Europe, locusts in Palestine, deportation of Armenians from Istanbul, Mexican Revolution, American occupation of Haiti.

It was so vibrant and so very very fair until those ads and wonks got involved.

[n2doc]

8. Seems to me it is more like what they want is 50-60 years ago

You know, the age of dominant American Union manufacturing jobs, 90% taxation on the wealthy, etc.,etc.

Except I don't hear too many people of color yearning for those days…..Only white men and some women (who also seem to have forgotten their history. )

[mountain grammy]

9. The past is always overrated

[AZ Progressive]

10. People love to romanticize the past

It really is a phenomenon of human beings, to selectively remember and "enhance" the past, and thus yearn for it. If life was better for you way in the past than now, I can understand that. But the sentiment is not shared by everyone, and specific groups had it much harder in the past than now.

[xchrom]

7. du rec.

[Populist_Prole]

11. Interesting, if ponderous, article with a lot of good points

I've run across so many people, some of them kin to me, who unabashedly run themselves ragged spinning the hamster wheel in pursuit of more and more stuff/status. They have a great life "on paper" ( so to speak), like to tell everybody they're happy, but when I am with them, all they seem to me are brooding fatigued workaholics always mad about something or someone. They're politically conservative too.

[rbrnmw]

14. they seem to forget about Jim Crow

I am sure if you asked PoC how great it was for then back then they wouldn't yearn for that time.