Be Happy: what is important

Doesn't it make sense that, if money purchased happiness, the richer the country, the happier its people? One has to wonder then why surveys in our wealthy country consistently show a decrease in life satisfaction and an increase in depression and distrust.

We can speculate all we want about whether money will bring happiness into our lives. But one way to find out is to ask people who have it.

When the exalted members of Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans were asked if they were happy with their lives, using a scale of 1 to 7 (completely satisfied was a 7), none of us would be surprised to learn that they averaged almost a 6.

What is interesting though is that dung hut-dwelling Masai in Kenya and the shivering Intuit people from Greenland are right up there, scoring as high as the country-club set.

Maybe -- just maybe -- it isn't money after all that ensures happiness.

The "happiness shrinks," Drs. Ed Diener and Martin Seligman, reviewed more than 150 research studies on the subject and concluded that extra cash does not buy happiness. Once basic necessities are met, the luxuries we are supposed to want may bring us many things, but it won't make us a real-life smiley face.

In their report, they concluded: "Economic success falls short as a measure of well-being, in part because materialism can negatively influence well-being, and also because it is possible to be happy without living a life of luxury."

A colleague of mine who has worked with many affluent people in his psychotherapy practice, offers these astute observations: "If I've learned anything from my clients about 'happiness,' it's that it is inextricably tied to the quality of one's intimate relationships. Regarding my clients for whom money is more than abundant, I find their complaints and honest pain are the same as those for whom money is a constant and realistic worry."

The doctor elaborates: "They want to be with somebody who cares about them deeply without suffocating them, who respects them by thinking about their feelings and needs, who is empathic enough of the time and apologizes when they misunderstand, who says they are the most beautiful person in the world even if they don't mean it.

"I have never seen money buy any of these things."

The ambitious review of studies on happiness found that once one's basic necessities are met, happiness derives from the following: Work that is satisfying, a sense of meaningfulness in life, affiliations ... and, like my colleague's testimony, good relationships.

I think we can all intuitively grasp these truths. But so often we do forget them as we become gripped by the fantasy of a bigger and better life through stuff.

In other words, we lose perspective. Sometimes life needs to intervene to readjust our priorities and teach us what is really important. An accident that comes within 5 inches of crushing the life out of you, as happened to my dearest friend recently ... turning the corner and avoiding by seconds a terrible incident in which a car hurtles into a crowded farmers market, killing many people, as happened to me two years ago.

Or, perhaps the most tragic life intervention of all, losing a beloved daughter to premature death, as happened recently to one of my oldest friends.

That same friend recently shared with me a piece of philosophy about money and happiness that has taken on a new meaning for him: "Debt is bad. Saving is good. Giving is fun. Stuff is meaningless."

Ask yourself, as I am sure my friend has, what is really so important now?

Dr. Michael O.L. Seabaugh, a Cape Girardeau native, is a clinical psychologist who lives and works in Santa Barbara, Calif. Contact him at mseabaugh@semissourian.com.