According to the Office for National statistics and their annual review, Money really cannot buy happiness.
Among its comprehensive reports on anything from what we Brits eat,buy and enjoy to how many sexual partners we have had, it suggests that despite the average Briton's salary doubling in the last 30 years, we are no 'Happier' - citing only 86 percent of us claiming to be either satisified or very satisified with our lives - the same figure as 30 years ago.
Perhaps most worrying, the survey posits that "only half of 16-21 year olds feel happy with their prospects for the future"
The first thing I found myself asking was what exactly constituted happiness; in this survey it seems to be overall contentment. Is happiness not something more? something harder to quantify?
Source: The Independent, Wednesday 9th April 2008, pg.12
I have just found it on their website,too:-
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/richer-yet-no-happier-unmarried-yet-fewer-sexual-partners-ndash-survey-reveals-the-truth-about-britons-806326.html
Poverty can not buy happiness (nor medicine, food, shelter, etc) either .
ReplyDeletewe have parallel but separate drives - material and immaterial - which are equally attainable, but are geared towards the material to such an extent we're surprised when we aren't magically fulfilled.
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