Comparing perspectives on the concept of happiness

            Today’s world is preoccupied with the pursuit of happiness and this introduces the debate on what can be considered as the sources of happiness. The predominant thought on consumerism emphasizes material comfort as the greatest source of happiness with people tending to strive towards higher incomes and greater acquisitions to improve their levels of happiness. With the increasing cases of stress and depression in the USA, these assertions and being disputed with analysts taking the view that spirituality, personal attitudes and the sense of satisfaction in activities that people engage in are more meaningful sources of happiness.   

            Peck and Douthat describe the main sources of happiness as “material comfort and social and familial intimacy” (Crucius and Channell 353). They go on to highlight the paradoxical relationship between economic development and happiness by stating that whereas economic development increases material comfort, it diminishes the familial intimacy hence material comfort increases happiness only to a certain  extent. Schumaker on the other hand views the main source of happiness as personal attitudes with the feeling of satisfaction in what one does seen as the main source of happiness. Csikszentmihlyi reinforces Schumaker’s perspectives and concurs that happiness can be achieved through satisfaction in one’s activities and achievements. They demonstrate this by highlighting the thoughts of a mother who describes her happiest moments as “when I’m working with my daughter, when she is discovering something new” (364).  

            Closely related is to this question is the correlation between income and the level of happiness. In a study conducted across 54 countries, Peck and Douthat established that the level of income contributes to happiness but only to a certain point when additional levels of income produce diminishing returns as far as happiness is concerned. Schumaker reinforces this by observing that the ability to acquire too much happiness could actually lead to lower levels of happiness and emphasizes that “the wrong type of happiness is worse than no happiness at all” (358). The direct implication of this assertion is that additional incomes improve the level of happiness only to a certain extent. Csikszentmihlyi brings this out more clearly by drawing on the insights of the Maslow’s hierarchy where he notes that “in addition to existential needs, we also have experiential needs” (365). This means that material acquisition alone does not constitute happiness in the absence of the accompanying shopping and purchasing experiences.

            Peck and Douthat highlight this perspective by cautioning that there is a limit to how much happiness money can buy. Schumaker makes his contribution to this debate by decrying the extent to which the concept of happiness has been commercialized. He decries this distortion and states that “the highest forms of happiness have always been experienced and expressed as love” (358). By admitting that material comfort constitutes one of the key sources of happiness, Csikszentmihlyi admits that money can indeed buy happiness. However, he cautions that the possession of greater amounts of money increases the level of mobility and denies families time to share familial intimacy and this compromises the level of happiness that can be achieved. These perspectives therefore reinforce the assertion that money can only buy happiness to a certain level.

            These perspectives therefore lead to us to the question on what it means to be happy in the modern society. Peck and Douthat makes note of the rising cases of depression in the USA and concludes that the level of happiness in the USA is lower today than it was in the yester years. Schumaker comes up with similar thoughts and observes that the modern world is obsessed with the though of pursuing happiness. He further goes on to caution that obsession with the pursuit of happiness is in itself one of the major causes of unhappiness. Csikszentmihlyi introduces a new angle to the debate and focuses on the materialism that dominates the modern lifestyle. He claims that the modern society has concentrated on defining happiness in terms of the level of material comfort and can therefore not be any happier unless such perspectives were changed. Peck and Douthat reinforce the inadequacy of material comfort as a source of happiness by observing that “happiness in the United States has not risen over the past fifty years despite an average increase of more than 85% in the real value of family income” (356). Csikszentmihlyi emphasizes the fact that happiness can be derived by simply enjoying what one does and this leads us to the next question which is: is enjoyment a viable alternative to materialism in causing happiness?

            Csikszentmihlyi shares insights into the importance of experiences in enhancing happiness. According to him, experiences breed satisfaction and it is the levels of satisfaction that that contribute more significantly to the level of happiness. To illustrate his point, Csikszentmihlyi compares the shopping experience to the item purchased. In his opinion, “the shopping experiences produce a high level of enjoyment” and it therefore generates more happiness than the actual act of purchasing the items (365).  Peck and Douthat and Schumaker reinforce this perspective by noting that the amount of happiness that one can derive depends on their ability to feel the satisfaction in their experiences.

            In conclusion, the perspectives shared above point to the fact that today’s society may not be happier than it was in the yester years. This may be due to the fact that today’s world is more materialistic and tends to have the view that material comfort constitutes happiness. Economic development has yielded greater material comfort but has also led to the erosion of the values such as familial intimacy and this has led to an overall reduction in the level of happiness. Schumaker emphasizes this point by decrying the apparent moving away from the traditional values of virtue that were traditionally viewed as the greatest sources of happiness. Csikszentmihlyi ably demonstrates this fact by taking note of the increasing cases of stress and depression in the USA and highlights them as evidence of the fact that today’s society is less happy than in the past.

Works cited

Crucius, Timothy, W. and Channell, Carolyn, E. The Aims of Argument: A Text and Reader. Mc-Graw Hill. Print. 2002