Meanwhile: Looking for happiness in all the wrong places Michael Johnson International Herald Tribune Tuesday, March 15, 2005
LONDON As I rode the London Underground recently, a middle-aged man with a head like a peeled potato entered my coach carrying a ukulele. In a loud baritone he asked the assembled grouches, "Does anyone here remember happiness?" Nobody moved a muscle. . But by the time he had finished one of his sprightly tunes he had won over much of his traveling audience. Nearly half of them contributed coins to his knitted cap. It was an extraordinary result for five minutes of music. . This musician's success was the latest in a series of indications that people seem more and more intent on finding happiness, however briefly and however they may define it. Apparently they are willing to pay street performers for a sample. . I asked the musician, Harvey Mooney, why he thought he was getting such a generous response. "Happiness is not normally part of their lives," he said. "The Undergound is where they suffer most. I make a good living doing this." . It is only a coincidence that I witnessed a happy London musician just as Prime Minister Tony Blair's people announced plans to establish a "wellbeing index" for Britain. It goes into effect around the end of next year and it will try to quantify and index the degree of happiness New Labour has been able to bring to the citizenry. . Not surprisingly, much mockery has ensued. The Daily Telegraph editorialized that the plan will "take some beating for sheer effrontery." The opposition can't wait for Blair to stand up in the House of Commons and announce in Soviet style that official figures show an increase in happiness of 3.4 percent. "That is the day when he is laughed out of office," the editorial thundered. . Even Time magazine noticed the happiness trend earlier this year and devoted nearly an entire issue - 47 pages - to its pursuit. All right, it's in the U.S. Constitution, right after life and liberty, but such a sharp focus on getting happy starts to sound like a symptom of a sick society. Happy? Five car bombs went off in Baghdad the week of that issue of Time. . Time's European edition ran a 14-page boildown of the package in February but even that seemed to me to be about 13 pages too long. . Despite skeptics and political backlash, the happiness phenomenon is spreading relentlessly. I wouldn't pay attention if it weren't that positive psychology and its derivatives are turning it into a major money-making industry. The mix of therapy and easy money has always been unhealthy. . You can now discover the secrets of happiness by purchasing one of about 3,000 current books on the subject or subscribing to an American psychologist's website for $9.95, first 30 days free! . The movement seems to have tapped into a deep rut of unhappiness, teeming with people who don't like it there. . Yet one has to ask whether constant happiness is achievable or even desirable? If you watch the evening news, could you possibly be happy? Aren't our greatest pleasures found in solving problems and overcoming obstacles? The positive psychologists think not. . It is easy to dismiss the hype and the pop psychology, but the British model of indexing happiness is part of a much bigger movement. The Nobel economics laureate Daniel Kannemann is developing a formula to rank governments according to the happiness they deliver to their citizens. In his pilot research with 909 American working women, he asks them to record their degree of happiness with 28 kinds of activity each day. Somewhat surprisingly, the women say sex comes first, followed by seeing friends and having lunch with colleagues, then watching television alone, shopping with a spouse, spending money and cooking. . Kannemann is working with three other U.S. universities to build a methodology that can be exported to other countries. Each country can then rank itself, as Britain will be doing, on a scale of gross national happiness. . A sensible British doctor, Anthony Daniels, read three of the new British books and wrote in one newspaper that happiness is far too personal for any consensus definition to emerge. We know it is not about money or consumerism - at least not in Britain. And he found one of the books akin to being cornered by a pub bore who thinks he has something important to say but hasn't. "I have rarely read so many pages with so little profit," he says. . Personally, I'll settle for another five minutes of Harvey's ukulele. . (Michael Johnson is a former correspondent for Business Week and The Associated Press.) ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> *************************************************************************** Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *************************************************************************** __________________________________________________________________________ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
