"Happy" is such an ambiguous word and happiness such an elusive concept. While I truly sympathize with the author, this article, like many others in similar vein, seems to offer the same kind of message as that stereotypical mom-to-spoiled-kid admonition: "Eat your food, don't you know how lucky you are? There are children starving in Africa!"
I agree that the media are trying to sell us the idea that happiness is a state to be obtained by achieving whatever is the latest definition of "success" and I agree that this is bad. But if we're trying to avoid that, let's be careful not to run into the other extreme: confusing happiness with contentment.
It is normal and natural for human beings to want more and strive for it. I think that the idea of "having enough" goes against our nature. Sure, I probably have more than I absolutely need for survival. Sure, I guess I "have enough" according to some arbitrary definition of "having enough". I most definitely "have enough" when you look at it from the point of view of someone who has less.
The point I took away from the article is that we should enjoy what good we have. That's a message I can agree with: even if you want more, don't forget to enjoy what you have now. But I can't take that one more step and settle down and say "That's enough." I still don't see why I should do that. Perhaps it'll come to me some day, but for now, all I can think of when people offer me that idea is this passage from Frank Herbert's "Children of Dune":
"[...] Tell me, Namri, are you content?"
"No." The words came out flat, spontaneous rejection.
"Then do you blaspheme?"
"Of course not!"
"But you aren't contented. You see, Gourney? Namri proves it to us. Every question, every problem doesn't have a single correct answer. [...]"
I think that the idea of "having enough" goes against our nature.
Our nature as humans or our nature as European-derived societies? Plenty of indigenous peoples around the world are/were quite happy with "having enough".
Striving for more is a cultural thing, not 'human nature'.
"Plenty of indigenous peoples around the world are/were quite happy with "having enough"."
This kind of 'reasoning' makes my blood boil. I've told this story a million times, but here it goes again: I was once in Puno in Peru, at the shore of lake Titicaca. It's a famous tourist attraction, where 'indigenous' (I loathe that word) people used to live on floating 'islands' made out of reed. The story that is portrayed to the tourists is that they still do; as happens with many of that sort of travels, I was surrounded by obnoxious 'embrace other cultures' idiots who were saying how great it was that these people still lived like they used to, and how much better it would be if we (= in the West) would also do so, and how 'authentic' it all was.
Well, we were on the first boat of the day, and along with us rode a bunch of 'indigenous' people with reed skirts who had missed their boat to the island 45 minutes earlier, because they were living in Puno in a proper house where their kids could play soccer and where they didn't have to fear at night that the very house they and their children were sleeping in would sink from right under them. While a bunch of rich white assholes (disclaimer: I'm white and by most global standards fairly rich, I guess, although I think that most of the time I'm not an asshole) were proclaiming how 'authentic' living on a reed boat was, these people who were actually living that life decided that they would get out of it as soon as they could.
Boil away. I also hate the "aren't they quaint" crowd, who think it's a shame that third-worlders buy mass-produced t-shirts these days.
But how many cultures were as driven by the need for pure wealth as Europeans were? If it's a 'human trait', why do we see broad technological development in only several areas?
I mean, hell, if your argument is "Folks in Puno were scared that their house might sink", let me counter with "Fuck it was hard for the masses in England during the Industrial Revolution", and it was the wealthiest nation the world had ever seen to date. England was spurred to improve their lot so drastically because of culture, not innate human nature. That's my point.
Perhaps you're just hung up on the word 'happy'. Change it then to 'content'.
One interesting feature of Indonesia where I am right now is that unlike any other nation I have ever been to, handicrafts are used for everyday things. If you remember, this is what Barak Obama's mother was studying when she moved here so many years ago. The fact that handicrafts are still valued, and that hand-woven (and decorated) tablecloths still decorate my mother-in-law's table, or that much of the furniture is hand-made (though this is sadly changing as Cheap Plastic Crap(TM) is replacing it) gives the country a sense of vibrancy that wouldn't exist otherwise. Even today, while mass-produced T-shirts (a major Indonesian export) are used for every-day wear, for particularly important gatherings, hand-dyed batik is still a status symbol every bit as much as hand-made suits are in the US (I have seen shirts sell in boutique markets for $500 USD!)
What we are missing is quite frankly a sense of place.
But on to your bit about the industrial revolution in England, let me suggest reading "The Servile State" by Hillaire Belloc (you can find a PDF on-line for free since it is out of copyright). He suggests that the industrial revolution, which began in England, occurred specifically because of Protestant efforts to get peasants off their land, and thus unable to earn a living other than working in the factory. While his writing style is very early 20th century, his views on history and slavery are backed solidly by everything I have ever studied directly and while the book is a sort of cult classic for Libertarians, it is hard to see why since the book is as uncomfortable with liberal capitalism as it is with socialism.
Societies that don't believe they have enough will tend to seek out more, conquering the societies that do believe they have enough. Eventually the whole world ends up unhappy, because cultures that desire more end up committing genocide against cultures that do not have that same hunger.
I've heard similar evolutionary explanations for the hedonic treadmill and the evolution of happiness itself. There's a reason for desire: it spurs us on to do ever larger things, which makes us more likely to survive (or at least, not get killed by our neighbors who also want nice things) and pass on our genes.
That still doesn't mean it's human nature, just that it's the nature of the dominating culture. If a sheep is eaten by a wolf, it doesn't mean that it's in the 'nature of animals' to eat other animals; that the sheep all along wanted deep down to munch on meat.
Our purpose in life is to spread our genes as far and wide as possible. As such, it's not far off to say that "striving for more" is a facet of human nature; having more money, a fancier car, more goats, bigger muscles, etc is a great way to get more mates, and fulfill your evolutionary goals to a larger extent.
Fuck success, and all the glorification of it. I've been a slave to it (and ambition, which is just success in another guise) for way too long.
Why do I say this? Because I'm not fully convinced it was always me choosing success. I was choosing success out of my own broken desire to be accepted socially, as if I had to redeem myself in people's eyes. This was a false reality I'd constructed based upon negative experiences in the past. The winning move was not to become the Ideal Male Seen On Magazines, but instead to grow into my identity. I have nothing to prove, and no one to impress, ideally.
I'm not saying success is bad. I just wonder sometimes if someone benefits from all the neurosis and anxiety that the trappings of success lays for people. Capitalism? VCs? Because it seems that many elements of culture are not created with our best interests in mind.
The winning move was not to become the Ideal Male Seen On Magazines, but instead to grow into my identity.
Sounds like you've traded one mythology for another. I doubt there was any "identity" that you pin-pointed, decided you wanted to grow into, and worked toward growing into. Rather, I think that "to grow into my identity" here means "to grow into that which I will grow into", making it self-fulfilling.
Evolution gave us pain and suffering; indeed we shouldn't glorify it. But we should also not glorify the way things are as the way things should be. Can we all please deal with our insecurities in some other way than by making up a story saying it's all okay? The world is on fire. All is not okay.
Our 'purpose' is no more to satisfy the evolutionary process than water's 'purpose' is to satisfy the Water Cycle. Evolution isn't a thing with motives, and certainly doesn't have goals. It's a description of a process - it can't impart purpose.
What you've described is bland pop psychology that homogenises human behaviour into one stereotype; that everything we do is aimed at improving mating chances. We're a lot more complex than that.
"...having more money, a fancier car, more goats, bigger muscles, etc is a great way to get more mates, and fulfill your evolutionary goals to a larger extent."
Indeed. Being rich and famous is a way to compensate for the lack of genetic traits that are typically attractive to the opposite sex (be it height, facial looks, or even race). Salman Rushdie, Jay-Z, Tiger Woods...
I agree that the media are trying to sell us the idea that happiness is a state to be obtained by achieving whatever is the latest definition of "success" and I agree that this is bad. But if we're trying to avoid that, let's be careful not to run into the other extreme: confusing happiness with contentment.
It is normal and natural for human beings to want more and strive for it. I think that the idea of "having enough" goes against our nature. Sure, I probably have more than I absolutely need for survival. Sure, I guess I "have enough" according to some arbitrary definition of "having enough". I most definitely "have enough" when you look at it from the point of view of someone who has less.
The point I took away from the article is that we should enjoy what good we have. That's a message I can agree with: even if you want more, don't forget to enjoy what you have now. But I can't take that one more step and settle down and say "That's enough." I still don't see why I should do that. Perhaps it'll come to me some day, but for now, all I can think of when people offer me that idea is this passage from Frank Herbert's "Children of Dune":
"[...] Tell me, Namri, are you content?"
"No." The words came out flat, spontaneous rejection.
"Then do you blaspheme?"
"Of course not!"
"But you aren't contented. You see, Gourney? Namri proves it to us. Every question, every problem doesn't have a single correct answer. [...]"