Why We Are Unhappier Than Ever Despite Having Everything We Could PossiblyWant

How abundance, comfort, and consumption may be undermining our happiness.

Who Doesn't Want To Feel Good?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could feel good all the time? Of course it would. In fact, the pursuit of happiness has become something of a full-time job in the United States and other affluent societies around the world. We are not just encouraged to feel good; we are expected to. And if we’re not feeling happy most of the time, we tend to assume something has gone terribly wrong.

Well, here’s the thing, folks… something is wrong. Lots of things. Watch the news for five minutes. It would be completely unnatural if we didn’t feel anxious, angry, afraid, or unsettled at least some of the time.  The problem isn’t that we feel unhappy.  The problem is that we have been conditioned to think we can “fix” our feelings by buying more stuff.  How’s that workin’ for ya?

Unhappiness, When Listened To, Can Lead To Positive Change

Unpleasant, uncomfortable, or “unhappy” emotions are a natural part of life no matter how hard we try to banish them. Anxiety, anger, fear, and sadness do not indicate personal failure. They are a human response to reality that can, in fact, be very useful.

Collective Discomfort Can Be Transformative

History shows us that collective discomfort can be transformative. For example, not all that long ago, smoking was considered perfectly normal everywhere, including on airplanes, in restaurants, in offices, even inside hospitals. Then doctors and scientists uncovered the link between smoking and cancer and the dangers of secondhand smoke. As awareness grew, so did our collective discomfort.

Why did we as a society listen? The truth became too hard to ignore. Secondhand smoke was harming everyone, not just smokers, or underprivileged communities, or people somewhere else. It was affecting all of us because so many of us were doing it. Faced with that reality, society acted. Laws changed, public spaces became smoke-free, and many people reconsidered their own habits in order to protect the collective health. Those changes didn’t just benefit the people alive at the time, they protected future generations.  

Why Are We Ignoring The Science?

Now consider the very real and well-documented danger we all face as a result of our overproduction and overconsumption. For decades, scientists and environmentalists have warned that the future of our planet is in jeopardy.  We are faced with rising global temperatures, the depletion of natural resources, and our ecosystems are under enormous strain. We are wiping out entire species.  The evidence is everywhere and indisputable.

In the North Pacific Ocean there is now a massive garbage patch made largely of plastic, estimated to be roughly the size of Alaska. Countries like Ghana and Chile have become dumping grounds for the world’s discarded clothing. In Chile alone, more than 126,000 tons of textile waste arrives each year, forming literal mountains of clothing that pollute the land and create serious health and environmental hazards. Meanwhile temperatures continue to rise, storms grow more severe, droughts intensify, wildfires spread, and species disappear.

Yet it is considered completely normal and acceptable to buy single use everything and bags of clothes we will only wear once if at all before discarding.

Why are we ignoring the science?  Why do we continue to accept overproduction, shopping as a hobby, wasting, and discarding as totally normal? Part of the answer may be distance. Much of the damage caused by our consumption happens far from where most of us live. Not many of us spend time in the regions of Ghana or Chile, where mountains and beaches of discarded clothing now accumulate. The massive garbage patch in the North Pacific sits in a place most of us will never see, and landfills are disproportionately located in less affluent and more industrial communities. And, for those of us who can afford air conditioning, rising temperatures can feel like little more than an inconvenience.

When We Don't Personally Experience The Negative Consequences Of Our Behavior, Those Consequences Become Easy To Ignore.

When the consequences are hidden from view, it becomes remarkably easy to pretend they aren’t ours.  But one thing is certain.  At some point in the not so distant future, the plastic and textile and electronic waste that we ship overseas is eventually going to find its way back to our shores.  Before long they too will  become unrecognizable and inaccessible.  When trash can no longer be contained in landfills, economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, and industrial  areas, and spills into our own neatly trimmed back yards, that might finally motivate us to act.   Do we really want to wait for that to happen before we do?

Can Stuff Make us Happy?

What does any of this have to do with feeling good or being happy?  Well what is happiness anyways?  Perhaps if it were easily explained it would be easier to achieve. I can tell you what it is not.  It is not stuff.  We are living in one of the most materially abundant societies in human history. We have more square footage, more conveniences, more entertainment, more choices, more money, and more possessions than any generation before us.  If comfort, security, and accumulation were the keys to happiness, we would be euphoric by now, yet countless studies indicate the exact opposite is true.   

Harvard professor Arthur Brooks suggests that happiness comes from a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction and purpose.  If what you are doing or buying or getting does not contain those three components, you will not experience genuine happiness but rather a dopamine hit which will not last.

If Brooks is onto something, suddenly it becomes super clear why we are less happy than ever.  As a society we spend most  of our time and energy chasing the next best thing.   That very expensive luxury car we have always wanted certainly may be enjoyable to drive. We surely feel some personal satisfaction for having been able to acquire it, our hard work paid off. But I just can’t see how in any way shape of form it gives us purpose. Every time we turn it on some part of us knows it is bad for the environment, it costs more than most people make in a year and likely the people who assembled it are exploited in some way.

I am not saying we should not enjoy the fruits of our labor or that we should not have nice things. What I am saying is that we should not believe the narrative that having them will finally make us feel happy.

What Is Life Purpose?

“Purpose” refers to life purpose.  The underlying theme that connects our passions, strengths, values, and the positive impact we want to make on the world.  It is what we want to be remembered for.   It is an undeniable component of true happiness. Spoiler, it is not the luxury car.

I don’t know exactly how each of us finds happiness. That journey is personal. But I do know this: we will never find it by anesthetizing ourselves with buying more. Until we begin living in alignment with our values and accepting responsibility for how our individual choices affect the collective good,  we will continue to feel dissatisfied no matter how much we achieve or accumulate.

When we accept that unhappiness can be useful, a signal asking us to pay attention and make change, then perhaps the first step toward real happiness is not eliminating discomfort, but listening to it.  Listening long enough to ask:  What actually matters?  What am I here to contribute?  What do I want to be remembered for?  What feels right, even if it isn’t always comfortable, easy or considered normal?