Happiness

I just watched the President's State of the Union address to congress. My reaction is good, I liked it. I almost always enjoy when the President speaks. However, the cynic in me feels that regardless of his uplifting rhetoric and well thought out plans, there is little hope of intelligent progress. Obviously I am frustrated (like most of the country) with American politics. But that is not the point of this post.

A thought occurred to me about halfway through the speech: I did not recall hearing the word "happiness". I could be wrong, I certainly did not have a copy in front of me and I'll admit there were points when I did not give the President my full attention, but I did watch the speech in its entirety. The problem I had was not the lack of the word itself, but the entire idea of happiness was missing. As a country we are slipping in our rank of nations in terms of happiness (according to Forbes). Currently, the United States is rated 12th. Certainly not a bad mark, but I do not feel the USA is climbing that list but is instead declining. Education, sustainable energy, lower unemployment are all valuable targets to emphasize, but why not explicitly launch an effort to ease the pursuit of happiness. I believe many policies and goals in this nation do facilitate happiness, but I think the USA should be interested in making its citizens happier over wealthier.

The American Dream is not, or at least is no longer, an attempt to secure a happy life, but a hope for capitalistic wealth. That is if the American Dream still exists at all anymore. Many quote the line "money does not buy happiness" and I believe that to be true. On the other side though, a lack of money, at least in this country, is usually a way to prevent happiness. I think we should take a page out of the book of other countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Australia) who are listed as the happiest countries in the world based on a variety of things. Lets not spend so much time trying to be the "best" in the world but instead the happiest.