[quote=zk][quote=scaredyclassic][quote=zk]Maybe the guy in India is as happy as the guy at the garden store.[/quote]
maybe. i felt an uncomfortable pause after i said my household income. like it pricked him. i could be projecting.
the guy in the garden store was having a really truly good time. told me hed spent 10 years working at a gas station and this job was awesome in comparison…of course, i didnt tell him my income, but he mightve thought i was a rich idiot, spending so much cash on giant pots…although frankly he didnt seem the type to judge.
i kinda wanted to hang out with him. maybe get trained to work there? that is, if money were no object. which is obviously not the case…[/quote]
Question: If you could trade places with the guy at the garden store, would you? (Leaving your family out of the equation.) You’d have his job and also his innate ability to be happy. You’d work in the garden store, and you’d be happy. You wouldn’t have much money.
You hear people say that how happy you are is a choice, but I think that’s only true to a very small extent. I think (and research says) a person spends most of his life hovering around his spot on the happiness spectrum, and it doesn’t really matter if he’s putting effort into being happy, and it doesn’t really matter if he’s a well-off lawyer or an $11/hour garden-store guy. It doesn’t even matter if he’s paralyzed or blind.
I was in NYC last summer on vacation. I’m having a decent time on vacation, and here I am on the subway. I’m probably mildly stressing about dinner accommodations or tomorrow’s itinerary. Three Jamaican maids walk in and sit down. They’re talking and laughing and sparkling. Two of them were, anyway. The other was happy to be along for the ride. I felt the same way about them as you did about the garden store guy. I wanted to hang out with them.
To me, being born (or raised, or whatever it is) with that level of happiness is worth far more than being born with the advantages of wealth, intelligence, first-world residence, educational opportunities, dominant race, good looks, or just about anything else.[/quote]
I have this discussion with my kids: would you take a drug that would reduce your IQ 20% but would guarantee that you’re happy for the rest of your life? Please no one argue about the relevance of IQ (we can just call it intellect).
Another way to put it: before I had my first child I worried about Down Syndrome. But DS kids are generally happy and loving. What I would worry about now is Autism – kids who find it hard to be socially integrated or content, and there’s no prenatal test for it.
