What price happiness?
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-07-03 15:38

SYDNEY: You don't need millions to be happy. At The Happiness Institute in Australia, a couple of hundred dollars may serve the purpose.

China Daily By Zhang Yaoning

Since the institute opened its doors this year, men and women of all ages have been paying A$200 (US$140) an hour for lessons in how to feel great.

Businesses are spending as much as A$6,000 (US$4,225) on half-day happiness workshops for their staff.

"You can actually increase your happiness levels. That's what we teach," said Timothy Sharp, founder of the institute, which also offers group sessions for A$30 (US$21) a head.

"We take people from zero and try to put a positive in their happiness bank account. You don't have to settle just for OK-ness. It's no more OK than having a zero bank balance. You can have a lot more," said Sharp.

Experts say only about 15 per cent of happiness is derived from income, assets and other financial factors. As much as 90 per cent comes from elements such as attitude, life control and relationships.

"If you're not a natural in any of these areas you can learn to get a lot better at them," Sharp said.

The Happiness Institute is part of what US economist Paul Zane Pilzer calls the "Wellness Revolution."

In his book of the same name, Pilzer says the next trillion-dollar industry after cars and information technology will be in preventative businesses that help people find peace, health and happiness.

While most of us are significantly better off financially than our parents and grandparents, happiness levels haven't changed to reflect that.

Studies show that once the basic needs of shelter and food are met, additional wealth adds very little to happiness.

"It's definitely not a guarantee. The difference between someone on pay of US$30,000 a year and someone on US$300,000 a year is actually very small. A lot of people are surprised by that," Sharp said.

"The economists are saying 'Well, why haven't there been changes? Because on economic measures there have been huge changes'."

Craig Barber, general manager of a hotel in Sydney, had five one-on-one sessions at the Happiness Institute and organized a series of four-hour group sessions with Sharp for his staff.

"You could hear a pin drop. At each break I walked around the tables and there wasn't a doodle in sight. They were so into it, paying so much attention," Barber said.

Even investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein has warned not to "equate money with happiness."

"A vast array of individuals seriously overrate the importance of money in making themselves, and others happy," said strategist James Montier in a recent memo to clients.

"Since the 1950s, people's happiness levels have been remarkably constant despite a massive growth in income-per-head over the same time horizon," he said.

Among the top 10 generators of happiness, alongside sleep, exercise and enjoying the moment, was sex.

"So what are you waiting for?" the memo said.

A 2003 study of 1,000 working women also found sex was rated as producing the largest amount of happiness. Commuting was the least pleasurable activity.

"People who have more and better quality relationships tend to be happier," said Sharp.

Economists David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and Andrew Oswald of Warwick University studied 16,000 Americans and calculated that going from having sex monthly to weekly gave about the same happiness as a US$50,000 raise.

However, Blanchflower admitted he wasn't sure if happiness led to more sex or more sex led to happiness.

Many decades ago, the "sage of Baltimore," editor Henry Louis Mencken defined wealth as earning US$100 more than your "wife's sister's husband." Behavioural economists now say part of the reason we are richer but not happier is because we compare ourselves to people better off materially.

"The argument is that if you want to be happy there's a very simple thing you can do: compare yourself to people who are less well off than you: poorer, smaller house and car," said Sharp.

"What a lot of people do is quite the opposite and that's one of the causes of frustration and status anxiety," he said.

Cornell University Professor Robert Frank says a majority of Americans, asked whether they would rather earn US$110,000 while everyone else earned US$200,000, or earn US$100,000 while everyone else earned US$85,000, chose option B.

"The kind of house people feel they need depends on the kind of house that others around them have," said Frank in his paper "Spend more, save less: Why living in a rich society makes us feel poorer."

The Happiness Institute aims to show to people how to overcome these unhappiness drivers by focusing on "more than just your bank balance."

"If I compare myself to Bill Gates then I'm always going to be well down," said Sharp, adding a better benchmark might be Kerry Packer, Australia's richest person who has had a kidney transplant and heart surgery in recent years.

"On a health scale I'd like to think I'm leagues ahead of him. Would you really want to have US$4 billion if it meant your kidneys are shot?" said Sharp.

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