什麽能使我們幸福？

 

如果說，追求幸福是人活著的目的，大致不會有太大的疑問。然而，怎樣才能達到這一目的，什麽樣的生活才能使人感到幸福，卻是見仁見智的問題。獲得金錢，地位，權力，名譽，健康，安全，愛情，親情，友情，等等等等，便成了許多人衡量幸福的指標；努力追求這些具體指標也就成了實現幸福這一目標的手段。不幸的是，不少人卻在追求幸福的過程中將手段和目的倒置，即使達到努力追求的指標，依然感覺不到幸福。

從社會發展的角度看，達到經濟富裕，政治自由，教育發達，社會和諧，福利體係健全，。。。等等指標，無疑是全體公民的福祉。但是，在追求這些指標的過程中，很多國家往往容易轉向，找不著北。現在，優先發展經濟成了許多發展中國家在現代化過程中的首要目標，而刺激消費鼓勵貪婪則成為經濟發達國家持之以恒的任務。為了追求幸福，人們瞎折騰，給自己增加死拽死不說，還為爭奪資源，破壞環境，動不動挑起戰爭，使全世界籠罩在核大戰的恐懼當中。

剛剛看到這篇報道中提到，財富與幸福有著緊密聯係，一些貧窮的非洲國家的人缺少幸福感，幸福指數明顯低於其他國家。這說明，貧窮是不能帶來幸福的。但是，經濟落後的不丹人的幸福指數為8.0，而美國人的幸福指數為7.4，不及不丹。這又表明，財富並非產生幸福感的唯一重要指標。

不說不丹王國以GNH取代GNP的做法是否應當效法，僅就其幸福指數高於美國來說，就值得人們深思。由於時間關係，這篇文章未能翻譯成中文，僅轉貼原文在此，供感興趣的朋友參閱。

Science wants to know: What makes us happy?

Researchers and governments try to determine which factors lead to a person's well-being

August 26, 2007

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan long ago dispensed with the notion of Gross National Product as a gauge of well-being. The king decreed that his people would aspire to Gross National Happiness instead.

That kernel of Buddhist wisdom is increasingly finding an echo in international policy and development models, which seek to establish scientific methods for finding out what makes us happy and why.

New research institutes are being created at venerable universities such as Oxford and Cambridge to establish methods of judging individual and national well-being. Governments are putting ever greater emphasis on promoting mental well-being.

"In much the same way that research of consumer unions helps you to make the best buy, happiness research can help you make the best choices," said Ruut Veenhoven, who created the World Database of Happiness in 1999.

When he started studying happiness in the 1960s, Veenhoven used data from social researchers who simply asked people how satisfied they were with their lives, on a scale of zero to 10. But as the discipline has matured and gained popularity in the past decade, self-reporting has been found lacking.

By their own estimate, "drug addicts would measure happy all the time," said Sabina Alkire of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Institute, which began work May 30.

New studies add more objective questions into a mix of feel-good factors: education, nutrition, freedom from fear and violence, gender equality, and perhaps most importantly, having choices.

But if people say money can't buy happiness, they're only partially right.

Veenhoven's database, which lists 95 countries, is headed by Denmark, with a rating of 8.2, followed by Switzerland, Austria, Iceland and Finland, all countries with high per capita income. At the other end of the scale are much poorer countries: Tanzania rated 3.2, behind Zimbabwe, Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia.

The United States just makes it into the top 15 with a 7.4 index rating. While choice is abundant, nutrition and violence issues helped drag its rating down.

Wealth counts, but most studies of individuals show income disparities count more. Surprisingly, however, citizens are no happier in welfare states than in purer free-market economies.

"In the beginning, I didn't believe my eyes," Veenhoven said of his data. "Icelanders are just as happy as Swedes, yet their country spends half what Sweden does (per capita) on social welfare."

Adrian White, of the University of Leicester, included twice as many countries as Veenhoven in his Global Projection of Subjective Well-being, which also measures the correlation of happiness and wealth. He, too, led his list with Denmark, Switzerland and Austria.

Bhutan, where less than half the people can read or write and 90 percent are subsistence farmers, ranks No. 8 in his list of happy nations.

By Arthur Max and Toby Sterling

Associated Press