Photo by Dumitru Caminschi, "Smile" by Catalina Iucal. Image taken during Toastmasters meeting, Chisinau, Nov 3, 2011
Sunt membru al clubului Toastmasters, unde exersam in engleza arta oratorica. Mai jos este discursul meu despre fericire si ce ne face fericiti.
My birthday passed not too long ago, and for the first time in all the years I’ve been celebrating my birthday, I noticed how many times people wished me happiness. We wish people happiness on their birthdays, weddings, in toasts etc. as if happiness is so important that it becomes the ultimate goal of our lives. But if you ask people what are the things that will make them ultimately happy, most answers will probably be pretty vague.
Pew Research Center did a research on what makes people happy. They asked over 3000 people from all over the US whether they are very happy, somewhat happy, or not happy and then collected more information about each person such as age, income, race etc. The research didn’t take into account psychological factors, just the demographical ones.
Before I share with you the results of the research imagine that I have on my right side a 70 year old woman, who is married, religious and has an average income. On my left side imagine a 30 year old hansom single man who is an engineer. Who of them do you think is happier? The answer may be unpredictable, because when it comes to happiness it doesn’t matter your age, race, gender. The research discovered 3 factors that seem to matter.
One of them is money. There are more very happy people among the richer ones then among the poorer. An interesting fact is that a similar research has been done 30-40 years ago when Americans had twice less money then they have today. The results, however, were the same. It turns out that it doesn’t really matter how much money you have. What matters is whether or not you have more money than the others.
Another “happiness factor” is marital status. 43% of interviewed married people said they are very happy and only 23% of the single ones said so. This ratio has been constant for decades. Since we talk about marriage, let’s talk about kids. At first they thought that people who have kids are happier, but they had not taken into account the marital status. When they finally have, they realized that married people with kids are just as happy as the married people without kids.
And last, but not least, the research proved that there are more happy people among the ones who worship every week, compared to the ones who do it rarely or not at all. Maybe it’s because most religions encourage people to be grateful rather than complain for what they don’t have.
Don’t forget that this research was done in the US, a Western culture, but there is also the rest of the world with different beliefs. Eastern cultures, for example, encourage people to search for happiness inside them versus outside, unlike the Western cultures where happiness is often associated with personal achievement. When you think about searching for happiness within yourself, the entire picture changes, doesn’t it?
Lev Tolstoi said: “If you want to be happy, just be”. Maybe it’s that simple! Maybe all we have to do is decide to be happy right here, right now, and from now on, and disregard all the “happiness factors”.
