Occasional Sunday Articles. Article No. SPS007. Possible Paths Towards Happiness, Hence Personal Suc

In our Occasional Sunday Article No. SPS002, we propounded that happiness is the most important aspect of human life. We said all other aspects of human life like material wealth, career milestones, social status, etc, are subsidiary. Happiness is therefore the sole measure of personal success.

Assessment of overall personal success in the above context could be in terms of a percentage of one's lifetime after the age of 18 that one has been happy. Our yardstick for such an assessment, that is open for public debate, is 90%, below which one would be considered to have had unsuccessful life. Personal success could also be measured in piecemeal using the same yardstick. When assessed in piecemeal, specific periods of personal success would be determined. For example while one could have had an unsuccessful life in terms of overall assessment, specific assessment might reveal that, although that person had unhappy life in his/her 20s and 30s, he/she had very happy life after the 40s. Our yardstick for assessing happiness is very good because it allows (10%) for natural periods of unhappiness that are common for all human beings!

Because happiness is the most important determinant of personal success, endeavors geared towards personal success should entail search for happiness. Theoretically, abject poverty is a total deterrent to happiness hence personal success, mainly because of it's direct link with numerous conditions that cause sadness like starvation, homelessness, poor health, inability to support a family, lack of education, unemployment, etc. At the same time, increasing financial security and material well-being, or simply increasing richness, is expected to lead to increasing levels of happiness hence personal success. There is even suggestion that there is a threshold financial and material wealth for happiness, beyond which which it will have no significant impact on overall levels of happiness. In the USA, the threshold annual income for happiness is put at $75 000. Accordingly, excessively rich people may not therefore be any happier, but they will be happy anyway!

Very interesting theoretical underpinnings for the concept of happiness hence personal success. In real life, however, the situation is not close to that!

Firstly, we all know that there are some poor people who are happy. For example, in a recent United Nations World Happiness Ranking by countries, Somalia was ranked highly, despite it's chronic economic, social, political, and security problems.

Secondly, we also know that some rich people are not happy, as exemplified by many cases of: rich people who have alcohol, drug, and mental health issues, as well as rich people who have committed suicide, because of unhappiness.

The obvious deviation from reality, of the theoretical reasons why some people are happy and others unhappy, shows vividly that our understanding of the concept of happiness hence personal success, is still very circumscribed. Particularly, because rich people are expected to be happy, existence of unhappy rich people has often been a "myth" to many people, especially the poor, as they wonder how could people with abundant wealth be sad! The purpose of this article is to clear out this "myth". The article explains why rich people can be unhappy hence fail to attain personal success. It also suggests three ways through which rich people could attain happiness in their lives.

We will begin with explaining why some rich people end up being unhappy.

To be happy, both the rich and poor need to have the social ingredients that are necessary for happiness, e.g. love, friendships, families, respect, good health, etc. None of the two groups have automatic access to the ingredients hence happiness. All members of both groups have to make necessary effort to get the social ingredients if they are to be happy! Richness per se can not therefore lead to happiness. It has to be converted to the social ingredients of happiness in order to bring happiness.

Because giving may have a powerful influence on the social ingredients for happiness, and that the ability to give may be determined by money, search for happiness hence personal success is often easier for the rich. Accordingly, one reason why some rich people may be unhappy could be that they have inadequate or no understanding about the concept of happiness, and particularly the way happiness is related to money. They may be having a believe that the social ingredients for happiness automatically follow money! Another possible reason could be that, some rich people may be so obsessed with money and associated material wealth, that they have no time for anything else except searching for more money.

So what could rich people do in order to convert their money into the social ingredients for happiness, so that they become happy and attain personal success? We would like to suggest three ways through which, we think, could lead rich people to happiness hence personal success. They are the following:

1) Be yourself 2) Engage in philanthropy 3) Engage in rigorous search for love like everybody else

We will now elaborate the three ways as thus.

First, being yourself even when you are rich and famous could enhance your happiness. Being yourself is equivalent to maintaining individual identity. Loss of individual identity can have very serious personal implications that are often deterrent to happiness hence personal success. Particularly, it can lead to complex confusion that can cause mental issues, loss of self confidence, disrespect and mistrust by people who know you, etc, that can only bring sadness to you. It is important to be aware that not being yourself is purely cosmetic because it does not entail physiological, genetic or ancestry changes. People who get rich and maintain their identity are often very happy!

Not being yourself doesn't include genuine material upgrading that follows as one gets rich, like bigger house, luxury cars, eating out in posh restaurants and clubs, trendy clothes and fashion accessories, expensive schools for the kids, personal medical doctors, etc. All people dream about such things, even the very poor! In fact, they are these things that people dream about, that make them work very hard day and night hoping that one day they will strike a fortune and attain them! Besides, it is quite natural to impress the world when one makes it economically! All human beings do it, in one way or the other!

What is not being yourself, however, are conformity lifestyle, habits, attitudes, values, tastes, and behavior, etc., that people adopt as they get rich and famous, in order to fit into what they think is or have been told to be the rich peoples' way of life or living standards. Not being yourself can therefore be self or externally inflicted. Externally inflicted not being yourself comes from society particularly the upper social class in the form of pressure that requires new rich people especially the young, to "live like rich people". Failure to succumb to the pressure may lead to isolation from some upper social class circles and privileges! As a result, some new rich people can find themselves not being themselves by drinking alcohol (champagne, spirits, etc.); smoking; regular dressing in clumsy and boring suits, evening dresses or other classic conformity outfits; living in socially secluded neighborhoods with houses hidden within high walls or fences; avoiding social contact with their less rich childhood friends; stop preparing their own food; stop doing their own shopping and laundry; stop eating their beloved "Big Mac" at the local MacDonald's; stop their regular visit to the local pub for the great "pint" and watch with the others a Premier League match; etc; even though they may not really like these kind of changes that disconnect them from their original way of living before they got rich!

Second, engaging in philanthropy when you are rich and famous, through bringing positive change in your family (parents and relatives), hometown/community, country, and the world at large, could could enhance your self fulfillment and give you great satisfaction hence happiness. Such endeavors may also trigger peoples' love and respect for you, hence enhancing your chances for finding happiness. People won't simply love and respect you just because you are rich and famous, but rather what good things you as a rich person is doing or has done to them and the world!

Engaging in philanthropy does not necessarily imply that you should loose financially in the course of doing that. You don't have to give cash handouts! You could, for example, use your money to start development projects that will benefit society but at the same time giving reasonable returns to you. Such projects could include: low cost housing projects for low income earners, solar power electrification projects in low income rural areas in developing countries like what Akon is doing in Africa, etc. In such projects, you could help low income earners by asking for minimum returns, hence giving some large percentage of the profit to the low income earners who can then buy generated products, e.g. houses or electricity, at reduced market prices! This could make you feel real good hence very happy because you will know that, in the course of making more money, you are at the same time helping the less fortunate!

Third, don't ever get the idea that just because you have become rich and famous, then it will be easy to find love, because that is not true at all in real life. You have to continue searching vigorously for love like everybody else, when you get rich in order to find happiness hence personal success. In fact it may be more difficult for people who are rich to find love than those who are not. On the first place, many rich people often set very high standards in their criteria for preferred loving partners, in terms of lets say physical appearance, income, intelligence, behavior, sophistication, education, etc., albeit they may not even meet such tough criteria themselves! So, a fairly not good looking rich man will demand for a stunningly beautiful, sexy, and intelligent girl/woman from a well-off family, just because he is rich; or a rich but fairly not beautiful or sexy woman will demand for a handsome sophisticated man because she thinks that he is the type of guy she deserves due to her wealth!

Unfortunately, love criteria set by some rich people may as exemplified above, be unrealistic in the real world and as such, finding loving partners who meet the criteria may be very difficult indeed. Unrealistic love criteria can hinder the chances of finding love very dramatically, as they reduce the number of options for loving partners or what are called potential loving partners! Sometimes, people for meeting such criteria may not even exist in real world!

But even when rich people set realistic loving partners criteria, the situation gets only a little better especially for rich men. Some men, rich and poor, are well known for their extreme flexibility when it comes to love or perhaps sex, and as such, may have a crush on any woman from any social class, race, nationality, age, etc. There are ample evidence that is documented about that, like for example, rich male celebrities who have had crushes on their house maids and even have children with them, or traveled to far flung places to search for wives, etc.

Men's flexibility in choosing loving partners mentioned above is even favored by the fact that there are numerous poor and medium income girls and women particularly in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as in some former Eastern European countries, who are searching for rich men! They are out there just waiting for a man with money to show up and make the right move! They don't mind to be lead by their husbands, as long as the latter can dish out the cash that meets their needs. Even in the rich countries, the situation is increasingly becoming so, as pure capitalism widens the gap between the rich and the poor! Whether what the rich people are getting from the poor girls and women they choose is love or something else is another matter, but at least they believe it is indeed love!

For rich women, however, having realistic love criteria may not necessarily make the search for love easier in any way. For instance, although a rich woman may be quite flexible and willing to find love from any social class, men with lower income who could qualify as potential loving partners for her, may either not have the guts to have a crush on her; or may simply not prefer richer women due to many men's perception about their leadership role in a family, that they may fear will seriously be threatened, if their wives are the main breadwinners, hence superior! You can not lead your superior! Can you? So frankly speaking, for many rich women, socially flexible or not, their source of potential loving partners is likely to be confined mainly to the rich upper class! That is very tricky situation indeed, for rich women, because as said earlier, rich men in the upper social class may not themselves confine to only rich women but may run after anything in a skirt, and may also have the traditional male desires for control!! Recent studies about search for love by rich women including highly educated women, by some universities worldwide, give similar suggestions.