In the past few days I've been seeing studies about the "general happiness of the world" posted on Yahoo! news. Apparently some association has been monitoring the responses of residents of a number of countries when questioned about their personal happiness levels. First of all, it's interesting that someone has decided to measure the moods of people; it is such a subjective thing to measure.
Within the first paragraph, or even in the teaser blurb, there is also something mentioned about the economy being bad. It is presented often as "in spite of" a slowing economy, people are still happy.
So it led me to wonder, what does that really show?
When I thought about it beyond just data, and an odd study, I thought about the nature of happiness and the economy. Maybe it just "scientifically" proves that happiness is not tied to money or possessions. Most people have heard the saying "money can't buy happiness" and maybe believe it, maybe don't. I've also heard it addressed in the church a lot as well, that followers of Christ should be seeking other things to find true happiness.
Seeing those studies reminded me that happiness and possessions don't go hand-in-hand. Science just seems to be catching up with general opinion.
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Very interesting indeed. It's amazing how many people and cultures measure success by wealth and measure happiness by success. A very flawed paradigm. And a difficult one to fight because we as Americans are so conditioned with it growing up, by our parents, by various media outlets, by society in general. It's hard to avoid being bombarded with that message. But in turning our eyes to the love of God, to His Word, we see that His love for us is immeasurable, infinite, and grace-given, unobtainable through any act we could ever perform. For that gift we should always be eternally happy. Money can't buy it. And the lack of money can't take it away.
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