♫ clap along if you know what happiness is to you ♫
Happiness is a pretty sophisticated thing, I'll have to admit. It's gratuitous, it makes you feel pleasant, and it agreeably infects everyone around you. However, allow me to pose you a question. What are the characteristics of happiness to you? While the definition of my happiness will no doubt differ from yours, there's a definite fact that governs happiness, be it mine or yours, as you read this. As Lauren Oliver once said, "You can't be happy, unless you're unhappy sometimes." Whilst this may sound a tad dispiriting, I think that the true issue is that we tend to forget that we are only able to attain our level of happiness by going through comparable levels of unhappiness, which enables us to appreciate these moments in life more. Well, there are always two sides to it! That's just another factor we're sure of in this journey called life :D
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| By experiencing unhappiness I'm not referring to this |
Yet, are we inadvertently assuming that happiness can only be obtained with a certain level of achievement or success? Prima facie, that answer seems to be a loud and resounding negative, since you can get happy from literally anything. You can find joy in staring at a wall, you can feel good from typing words and you can giggle from just rotating through memories. So why? How? These troubling questions arose as I looked at the results of the Happy Planet Index 2012, which found our little red dot being ranked the 90th out of 151 countries, far behind our regional peers, Vietnam, at 2nd, and Indonesia, placed at the 14th spot. While I completely understand that this ranking is made with comparison to other countries, and thus may not be definitely accurate, in my personal opinion I find this a decent gauge to our happiness index. Some may point at our competitive system and culture, and while that is indeed undeniable, I believe that the root cause of this is, aptly stated, and I quote, " people feel happy not because they obtain more- but demand less."
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| A thought-provoking quote! |
On the bright side, it does seem that Singaporeans have come to adopt a more relaxed policy, as we have shot up rapidly to the 30th place (hooray) in the World Happiness Report 2013, among 156 countries. Of course, we have to clock in some specific numbers as well :D And what better way to compare the quality of life than the HDI(Human Development Index)! As compared to many of the countries who stand above us, we actually have a comparatively higher GDP per capita, being the third highest in the world as of current times (Updated July 2014), and we are 7th in world rankings with regard to health expectancy! So with that in mind, our contextual environment is actually substantially privileged as compared to many others, and yet we are still somehow less happy compared to them.
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| And another! |
Well I suppose it really pans out to how you perceive happiness to be like in reality. The lesson to be learnt from this would be to relish whatever happiness that we can come in our way :D Whelp, I guess that's all for today, and I wish you all the best in find happiness in your lives! Seeya next time, and I hope you found this short read enjoyable!
