Happiness and the American Dream

We can clearly see the sources of discontent that drive the 4th American Revolution when we take a closer look at the unhappiness of America today.  We all like to imagine America as the pinnacle of the good life, but Americans are not even in the top tier of world citizens when it comes to personal happiness. We now know this through global research studies performed by economists and psychologists.

____________________

Taken from Will Marre’s,
The 4th American Revolution: What We Can Do Together

DOWNLOAD PDF: Happiness and the American Dream

____________________

Americans are overworked, overstressed, and overstuffed.

• The average American man works 51 hours a week.
• The average working woman, 43 hours a week.
• 17% of us work more than 60 hours per week!
• On average, Americans work 7 weeks more each year than workers in most of the developed nations.  We even work more than Japan.  And that doesn’t include commuting time.
• For many Americans, the ride to work costs another 8 to 10 hours a week, or more.  Another 60 days a year.

Who takes real vacations anymore?  Who has time to be happy?  We swallow anti-depressants by the truckload so we can slog through another work-year.  This is the good life?  This brings happiness?

It’s not just the quantity of work that is killing us.  It’s the whole way we look at life.  Happiness research performed in over 46 countries combined with data from the World Values Survey and additional research performed by The American Dream Project indicates that our current version of the pursuit of happiness is out of gas.

• We’ve created a society that consumes 40% more than any other citizens of developed nations.  But by every other measure: debt, health, education, family, marriage, leisure and happiness…we are trailing.
• In 30 years among first world countries we’ve nearly gone from first to worst.  On average we have the most debt, worst health care, poorest education, most criminals, highest divorce rate, lowest leisure time, and least happiness.   I know this is hard to believe.  It was for me too.
• Thirty years ago we led the world in almost everything that mattered, including happiness.  Today, of the 19 most developed nations, we languish in nearly every category.  For instance, according to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, we trail Poland in education.
• We trail Iceland and Ireland and seven other countries in both adult literacy and life expectancy.
• And only tiny Aruba has a higher divorce rate.  It’s sad.  No wonder we’re not happy.

Increasingly our society seems to have no unifying “North Star.”  Our compass needle spins in a crazy free-for-all of frantic ambition, consumerism, and self-inflation.  If we are to believe the media, self-indulgence now seems to be the way to self-realization and credit card debt the route to the American Dream.  But as most of us know, external things do not buy happiness.

Andy Stern as posted on the Huffington Post on October 3rd, commented that:

“Neither you, nor I, nor many of those who voted for it believe that this bill is going to solve the pressing issues American families are facing: rising unemployment, stagnant wages, skyrocketing health care costs, a tax system that favors the wealthy over the workers. The enormous challenges facing American families are real and they aren’t going away. But when your ship is taking on water and starting to sink, a bucket looks pretty good.”

If self-indulgence has become our way to the American Dream…has anyone stopped to think that the root problem lies within ourselves… apparently the government can bail out banks, but it can’t bail out behavior!

Whats the Greatest Thing We Can Do?
Question #3: How can we get Americans to face the reality that the government can bail out banks, but it can’t bail out our collective behavior?