Happiness

A few weeks ago I read an NBC News article about happiness. According to the 2020 World Happiness Report (which really is a thing), Americans are less happy now than they’ve ever been. We have a crisis of “happiness inequality” which occurs in societies with sizeable income gaps and a divided class system. This inequality has led to a reduction in average national happiness.

The report cites the key pillars of happiness as social connections, physical health, income and employment. While the Coronavirus certainly contributed to the decline of all those measures, erosion of these foundational values was already occurring. Coronavirus merely accelerated it. This makes me wonder: Are the four pillars listed above really the mainstays of happiness? How does inequality fit into all this?

Recently, I published a novel “When North Becomes South” which addresses what happens when we no longer have all the material and technological things we’ve become so accustomed to. Are there other pathways to happiness? The news article states: “the shared social norms and the willingness to elevate the interests of others that we are utilizing to fight the Coronavirus contribute to a growing feeling of happiness.”

Perhaps it is time for us to ask where we are heading. Can we create new pathways to happiness which transcend the need for more material goods? Maybe, collectively, we ought to reassess our cultural norms and change the trajectory of our society. Maybe North needs to become South.