Why We're Happy (page 2 of 2)

We’ve all heard that money doesn’t buy happiness, and that’s certainly true. But there is one way to get it: Give money away.

The evidence is clear that gifts to charitable organizations and other worthy causes bring substantial life satisfaction to the givers. If you want $50 in authentic happiness today, just donate it to a favorite charity.

People who give money to charity are 43 percent more likely than nongivers to say they’re very happy. Volunteers are 42 percent more likely to be very happy than nonvolunteers. It doesn’t matter whether the gifts of money go to churches or symphony orchestras; religious giving and secular giving leave people equally happy, and far happier than people who don’t give. Even donating blood, an especially personal kind of giving, improves our attitude.

In essence, the more people give, the happier they get.

Happiness Predictor 5: Freedom

The Founders listed liberty right up there with the pursuit of happiness as an objective that merited a struggle for our national independence. In fact, freedom and happiness are intimately related: People who consider themselves free are a lot happier than those who don’t. In 2000 the General Social Survey revealed that people who personally feel "completely free" or "very free" were twice as likely as those who don’t to say they’re very happy about their lives.

Not all types of freedom are the same in terms of happiness, however. Researchers have shown that economic freedom brings happiness, as does political and religious freedom. On the other hand, moral freedom -- a lack of constraints on behavior -- does not. People who feel they have unlimited moral choices in their lives when it comes to matters of sex or drugs, for example, tend to be unhappier than those who do not feel they have so many choices in life.

Americans appear to understand this quite well. When pollsters asked voters in the 2004 Presidential election what the most important issue facing America was, the issue voters chose above all others was "moral values." This beat out the economy, terrorism, the Iraq war, education, and health care as people’s primary concern. Pundits and politicians would certainly like us to think otherwise, and critics scoffed at the conclusion, interpreting it as evidence that ordinary Americans were out of touch. But moral values are critical to Americans. This suggests that, as a people, we do best by protecting our political and economic freedoms and guarding against a culture that sanctions licentiousness.

Lessons for America

The data tell us that what matters most for happiness is not having a lot of things but having healthy values. Without these values, our jobs and our economy will bring us soulless toil and joyless riches. Our education will teach us nothing. There will be no reason to fight -- or to make peace, for that matter -- to protect our way of life. Our health-care system will keep us healthier, but what’s the point of good health without a happy life to enjoy?

The facts can help remind us of what we should be paying attention to, as individuals and as families, if we want to be happy. There’s also an important message here for public policy and politics. We must hold our leaders accountable for the facts on happiness and refuse to take it lightly when politicians abridge the values of faith, work, family, charity, and freedom.

Candidates running for office should be grilled about happiness in debates and by the press, and their answers should determine our votes.

Our happiness is simply too important to us -- and to America -- to do anything less.

The American Way

Independence is happiness.
Susan B. Anthony

All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.
Daniel Boone

That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.
Willa Cather

There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.
Henry Ford

Being passionate about something is the key to success. But using that passion to help others is the key to happiness.
Arnold Schwarzenegger

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness you are able to give.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.
George Washington

Happiness is a by-product of a well-lived life, and it is achieved through the pursuit of endeavors that are meaningful and sometimes painful. Mark O'Connell in "The Marriage Benefit"

I'm happy if everybody else is.
Chris Rock

From Reader's Digest - July 2008

Originally in Gross National Happiness

 

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