This is interesting - Happiness is rising around the world:
"People in most countries around the world are happier these days, according to newly released data from the World Values Survey based at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research."
Most news focuses on bad news - "If it bleeds, it leads." I have never read a headline saying something like "Couple celebrates their fiftieth wedding anniversary" or "Good Samaritan pays family's rent for a month."
Many people seem to feel life today is rough. The reality is we are so much better off than most people living 150 years ago. Back in the early 1800s people spent a majority of their time working just to have enough food and clothing to survive. Today the average American spends about 5% of their money on food. We have so many more toys than people could even imagine a hundred years ago.
I'd rather live today in middle class America than be a king before the 1800s. The access we have to medical technology provides us longer lives. With television, radio, the internet, and so on we have much better entertainment. We can travel thousands of miles in a day. Life is good now.
I'm glad the study showed people are happier. Many they are realizing just how blessed we are.
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Technorati tags: happiness, life
2 comments:
As someone who has given birth twice and is pregnant again, I am very grateful to be living in an age where the maternal death rate in developed countries is a fraction of what it was in the past. In the 20th century, the maternal death rate in the U.S. dropped from nearly 1 out of every 10 all the way down to 8 out of every 100,000. That was one of the most striking things I noticed when looking at my family's genealogical records- just how many of the women died in childbirth :-0
Yes, you make a very good point.
In addition to problems at birth I remember reading that about half the children didn't make it passed age five.
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