Living happily ever after depends more on balance than cash
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You may have cried a little when Prince William and Kate Middleton got married, but you may not be innocent enough to believe they will live happily ever after. Flowers can wither and relationships can sour. The world doesn't have much room for fairy tales.
But we all long for happy endings. One proof is the recent enthusiasm for measuring happiness.
The Chinese government has recently made it clear that GDP is no longer considered the sole barometer for the status of the country's health. Premier Wen Jiabao discussed happiness with netizens earlier this year and in the 12th Five- Year Plan (2011-15), the government has added people's happiness as a measurement for its policies for the first time.
In the US, more people have been wondering about the essential factors associated with happiness since the current financial crisis.
The Gross National Happiness USA, a Vermont-based nonprofit organization focusing on "changing the measure from wealth to well-being" was established in 2009 and last year it held the first happiness-oriented conference in the US. Some local governments also started to monitor people's happiness.
Ironically, more people talking about happiness doesn't immediately make us happier. We greet one another with "chi le ma?" (Have you eaten?) only when we don't have enough food. We become nostalgic only when we are no longer in childhood. So when happiness suddenly becomes a buzzword around the world, it only serves as a brutal reminder of how far we are from euphoric status.
This seems to be the case in China. Many surveys have shown that despite rapidly accumulating wealth that allows people to buy Louis Vuitton bags and champagne, many Chinese don't find themselves happier.
What's more, rich, better educated and younger people seem to be less satisfied with their lives than their poor, less educated and older peers, as found by a preliminary survey by the China Development Research Foundation that will be formally released in September.
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