You are God For a Week - Bhutan, etc.

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction
Time Balance, Financial Security Biggest Barriers to Happiness in Capital

You are God for a week. You have one more miracle left. You can cure the blind or relieve chronic back pain.

Which choice will make for a happier world? Hmmm. A difficult decision isn’t it?

Surprisingly, relief of chronic back pain is the clear winner. Like lottery winners who get happy for a short burst, or, at the other end of the spectrum, paraplegics who lose the use of their legs and become depressed for a time, we humans get used to things quickly and return to a certain steady state of happiness. Those ‘cured’ of their blindness will likely get used to seeing and return to a level of happiness somewhere near where they started. Chronic pain, however, is a constant irritant and, unless treated, will make us very unhappy for a long time.

The economics of happiness looks at evidence to better make these trade-offs. The trick is finding and measuring things in a systematic, meaningful and accurate way. If the pursuit of happiness seems silly to you, consider that the World Bank, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations and others have recently declared developing better measures of progress – happiness (also called subjective well-being), quality of life, sustainability – as priorities.

When last I left you we were somewhere in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, population 700,000, trying to find ways of measuring their country’s progress using a newly developed Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index. No policy or program can be developed without considering GNH in this country that’s twice the size of the RDCK.

The Bhutanese have recently tried their first happiness survey, one that takes seven hours to complete. Ouch! One of the survey’s developers, Mike Pennock, an epidemiologist for Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA), thought the idea so great, he brought the survey home and tested it in Greater Victoria. Not the seven hour version, though.

With support from eight organizations including the province, the regional district, VIHA, the United Way and Victoria Community Foundation, Victorians became the guinea pigs for the rest of the world in November 2008. While questions of well-being have often been part of surveys, this survey was ALL about happiness and satisfaction.

Greater Victorians scored 76 out of a possible 100 in both happiness and satisfaction, scoring highest in freedom from deprivation (92) and availability of social support in times of crisis (83). Some of the lower scores were in interpersonal trust (69), ability to participate in cultural, arts and recreational events (65), satisfaction with governance (67), and the quality of the local environment (63). The lowest scores were in the areas of satisfaction with financial circumstances and security (53) and time balance (46).

Pennock was surprised at the very low score in time balance. He believes that financial and time-related stresses are affecting many people as well as people trying to care for and provide activities for their kids. Interestingly, the richest and poorest reported the most stress. Long commuting times are also taking their toll, with commuters from Sooke, Colwood and Metchosin scoring much lower than those living in the core of Victoria. About one in four Victorians spends little or no time doing what they really enjoy.

When Victorians were asked what would given them the most additional satisfaction in their life, less stress and more financial security were the top two answers, with 66% of the 2,400 respondents wanting these. Only 6% believed more possessions would bring them additional satisfaction.

While Victoria’s score of 76 may seem high, it ranked 35th of 45 Canadian communities recently surveyed using the basic happiness and satisfaction question. The highest scoring community was Granby, Quebec with many East Coast communities also scoring near the top. Pennock credits the East Coast dominance to their tight social networks. In a country comparison, Canada stands in the top 5, slightly behind leaders Denmark (82) and Switzerland (80).

With Greater Victoria’s survey information, the Capital Regional District and its partners hope to make some decisions that improve the happiness and satisfaction of Victorians. For instance, more resources may go towards chronic and mental illness, changing commuting patterns or better informing Victorians of what makes them happy (study after study shows we’re pretty hopeless at recording our happiness accurately unless we keep a record and ask the right questions).

With a few tweaks, the survey next travels to some Brazilian communities. Now that is has a benchmark established, Victoria hopes to do an on-line version of the survey on a yearly basis and offer a toolkit to other interested communities. If you’re interested in bringing this to the Kootenays, please e-mail me at happyeconomist@gmail.com.

Who knows, maybe we can solve the riddle of my chronic back pain or at least get happier trying to find a solution!

Mike Stolte is Executive Director of the Centre for Innovative & Entrepreneurial Leadership (CIEL – www.theCIEL.com). He also writes as the Happy Economist (www.HappyEconomist.com).

Originally published in the Nelson Daily News.

Maximizing Happiness

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of”

Albert Camus, writer & philosopher

Sorry Albert!

How wrong Monsieur Camus was! Research has recently begun to pinpoint what makes people happy and which people are happiest. Being the type of person who needs to know, I look with anticipation to every new happiness study so I can get on with the business of fine-tuning my life to maximize my happiness and discover interesting material that others find interesting or useful.

In this column, I’ll summarize some general research on what makes people happy and speak to how some of specific research on some of the big questions has helped me make some key decisions in life (in future issues I will provide a more in-depth examination at some of the more interesting research).

First, and very importantly, a little defining is in order. Happiness, in most of what I will write about, is generally agreed to mean feeling good, enjoying life and feeling it’s wonderful. Unhappiness is feeling bad or wishing things were different. Researchers often ask questions using happiness, satisfaction and a ‘1 (worst) though 10 (best)’ life scale to ensure they are talking about the same things to different people. And yes, researchers have recently managed to validate these subjective, self-assessed scores by using MRIs, brain scans measuring brain activity.

Who the Happy are….

According to a huge European study collected over 12 countries involving more than 100,000 people, the happiest people are highly educated, female, have a high income, are young or old (definitely not middle-aged), retired, looking after the home and are self-employed. Obviously, very few of us can fit into all these categories. In fact, I fit into very few of the categories (I feel old – does that count?) and still manage to be somewhat happy (as an economist, I find it hard to say something without qualifying it).

The seven key factors affecting happiness in a positive way are good mental health, satisfying work, secure work, a secure and loving private life, a safe community, freedom and moral values.

The most unhappy people are unemployed, divorced and are experiencing extreme ill health.

Being wanted and feeling wanted, both at home and in society at large, are both significant and universal across cultures. It’s also hard to have a high quality of life suffering from a chronic disease.

Here is what the research concludes on the some of the big questions affecting happiness and how I’ve used the information to change my life.

Wealth and happiness.

Wealthier people are marginally happier. For the most part though, research reveals that there’s not much of a difference once you’ve reached a minimum family income. A Time Magazine poll of Americans found that 81% of those making $35-49,000 year were happy all the time compared with 88% of those making more than $100,000 (interestingly, other research has demonstrated that 25% of Americans are mildly depressed at any point in time). More startlingly, in for both high and low incomes, the same proportion of people reported being happy rarely or not often. Thirty-seven percent of the people on Forbes list of wealthiest Americans are less happy than the average American.

At a national level we observe the same effect. The U.S., despite its massive wealth, scored 15th among nations in happiness behind poorer countries like Mexico, Colombia, and El Salvador. Georgia, Ukraine, Russia and Zimbabwe, all dealing with issues of poverty and limited political freedoms, scored lowest.

With wealth, there are two things going on. The first is habituation, or getting used to something quickly. Humans adapt quickly and soon after getting our new leather sofa – that we worked weekends and long nights of overtime to save up for – it too, is just another piece in a living room that doesn’t get lived in. The second is relativism. It’s essentially keeping up with the Joneses, our families and our peer group. Jim and Lisa get a second vehicle and take a ski vacation. The pressure builds for us to keep up. They are no smarter or better than we are we think. Pretty soon we’re showing off our big new plasma screen and the stakes of this no-win game have been raised.

Lesson #1: First off, if I have a choice between working some extra time for money or spending it with my family, I now pick the latter. Sure, it would be nice to have a new deck, to have the dull house painted or to have a new toy for the kids but the extra money will come at the expense of my weekends and my nights, already busy with family obligations. Research, and common sense, tells me the toy will soon be forgotten.

Lesson #2: Don’t get sucked into competing with the Joneses. Easier said than done. However, choosing friends that have similar values to you when it comes to money can be helpful and help relieve the financial stress we all experience. Ten years ago, I moved to a smaller community that seemed to eschew a culture of thrift. People drive older cars, attend garage sales and seem more content with second hand toys than in the big city. I make considerably less but I feel much less stressed financially .

Community and happiness. “Community matters: roots are as important to people as for trees,” says happiness researcher John Heliwell. Community is a significant factor in happiness. Combined with family, and friends, this is the veritable happiness trifecta. Heliwell’s studies look at social capital, trust, links and cohesion as big factors in the community puzzle. In communities with high rates of crime, there is lower trust. People who live on ground floors have markedly higher rates of anxiety and mental illness. A recent Australian study showed that nine of the 10 happiest federal electoral ridings were small, rural and rather poor while their urban cousins were often surly and unhappy.

Lesson 3: We are all social animals craving meaningful interaction. For me, seeking out a real community – one that was vital, active and that welcomed newcomers – was a good bet at tipping the happiness scales in a positive direction. In addition, living in a smaller community also assists me with reducing clutter, the scourge of the 21st century, and a true stressor.

Health and happiness. Happier people are healthier, live longer, have better immune systems. As mentioned earlier, having chronically poor health is one of the best ways to sabotage your happiness.

Lesson #4: While nutrition and exercise are critical (and get the lion’s share of attention on health), research also suggests that two other key components of health affecting happiness are adequate sleep and managing stress. One study concluded two of three American women were chronically sleep-deprived (getting less than seven hours a night). This perpetual fatigue had a greater effect than job satisfaction or income on happiness. I go to bed early now! Stress, often caused by worrying about the future, is a growing health and happiness affecting issue. Some quick remedies I’ve adopted are paring down my to-do list to half or less, setting goals that are more realistic (not too easy but not too challenging), spending time with people I genuinely like and can be myself with, and keeping a ‘gratitude’ journal (see last issue). I’ve tried but not yet mastered meditation. Trail running and cross country skiing with my MP3 player and some relaxing tunes create short ‘reality breaks’ that have meditative qualities for me. Research has shown that meditating Buddhist monks have enormous activity in the portion of the brain associated with happiness.

Work and happiness. We all need to feel wanted and needed. Most of us spend a good chunk of our lives working and thinking of work.

Lesson #5: Heliwell’s research concludes that next to job security, it’s most important to instill trust in the workplace. As an employer, I have focused on creating an environemeent that focuses on these. In descending order, Heliwell also found that having a variety of tasks, employing skills, having a job free of conflicting demands and having enough time also affected happiness, and ultimately workplace productivity. If you’re a boss or business owner, take note. If you’re an employee, show this to the boss!

TV and happiness. People who watch a lot of TV aren’t as happy as those who watch little or not at all.

Lesson #6: First of all let me say, that the studying happiness – long the exclusive domain of spiritual leaders and psychologists – makes me happy in itself. I know myself well enough (remember those Greek philosophers who advised one to know thyself before seeking happiness).

Originally Published in Porch Magazine by Mike Stolte, www.HappyEconomist.com