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The happy ending lies in others
In short, even when starting from different points, the conclusions are the same: one has to invest in others. Happiness is participation. Be it political mobilisation, being socially pro-active in the voluntary or community sectors, family or social networking on the web. It is on these interpersonal relationships and, indirectly, on the revaluing of the gift, the favour or the trust granted, that the model of the economics of happiness is founded, based on Roman Emperor Marco Aurelio’s precept: “We are each of us born for others.”
The missing link in the relationship between income and happiness must lie exactly within these relational goods. How is it then that Western man systematically gets his calculations for happiness wrong? He works too hard and so has neither time nor energy to dedicate to building relationships with other people. Or maybe he fails to notice that vast numbers of consumer goods are peddled as substitutes for relational goods. For example, soap operas, reality shows and talk shows, the dominant television formats, offer a simulacrum of real human relationships. For many viewers these small screen characters are, in fact, their only friends.
(16/06/2006)
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