Are Americans Becoming Less Happy

I am generally a very happy person, and getting better all the time, yet I find that I have been focusing on negative things far too often lately. I'm sorry to say that ATS does not help! Perhaps the negative focus is due to all the political turmoil but I find that at times I am more worried about others than myself.

It can be difficult being an optimist surrounded by pessimists. What I tend to do is retract from pessimism and attempt to surround myself instead with like-minded people that compliment my optimism. The problem is empathy. I still worry about the pessimists that are stuck in negative thoughts expressing anger and hatred towards other people including, especially, Americans.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

What are criteria for determining happiness?
The World Happiness Report has a list, “income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity”.

Here is another list.

...per capita gross domestic product (GDP), healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, social support and absence of corruption in government or business.

www.straitstimes.com...

Trust and absence of corruption appear to be the same but consider a false belief in corruption, misplaced distrust, brought to you by fake news. The lack in faith in government and the belief that corruption that is beyond your control is adversely affecting your life tends to stifle happiness. This not only affects your happiness but also that of those around you regardless of the validity of your distrust.

Are Americans happier? It doesn’t look good.

President Donald Trump’s promises of 4% GDP growth in America isn’t the best way to make his constituents happier, according to a new United Nations study.
That’s because while economic growth has gradually been on the rise in the U.S. since the financial crisis, Americans’ happiness has only been getting worse in recent years, according to the 2017 World Happiness Report. In fact, U.S. happiness as at its lowest score since 2006,

fortune.com...

Increasing GDP and/or personal income does not equate to happiness, at least beyond a certain point. It certainly helps but there seems to be a plateau in which other criteria, or lack of, hinder further progression.

Income inequality continues to be an issue. But there’s also been a marked decrease in interpersonal trust and trust toward institutions like the government as well as the media. In the end, more disposable income doesn’t hold a candle to having someone to rely on in a time of need.

qz.com...
As an American do you feel that your government, or anyone else for that matter, will step in to help you in your time of need? How about our non-American friends, do you feel that you can rely on your government to help you out in your time of need?

Americans think government corruption is on the rise in the country — up 15% since 2006. Generosity of donations, social support from friends and family, and Americans’ sense of personal freedom has also deteriorated, according to the study. That’s helped push happiness in the nation as measured by Gallup even lower.

fortune.com...

Distrust in the government, media and other Americans as well as all the transgressions found on social media appear to be a big factor in lowering the US’ happiness score.

So what does one do to make themselves happier? You could move to Denmark.

The new World Happiness Report again ranks Denmark among the top three happiest of 155 countries surveyed—a distinction that the country has earned for seven consecutive years.

The US, on the other hand, ranked 18th in this year’s World Happiness Report, a four-spot drop from last year’s report.

qz.com...
What about all the other wonderful people including friends and family that are left behind? Perhaps we all could learn something from this data. Do you want to be happier and would you like those around you to be happier as well?

We could adopt some of Denmark’s ideas. Denmark has a cultural construct called “hygge”, Pronounced [Hoo Guh].
What is Hygge?

It would be fair to say that hygge is fully integrated into the Danish cultural psyche and culture. But it has also become a bit of a global phenomenon—Amazon now sells more than 900 books on hygge, and Instagram has over 3 million posts with the hashtag #hygge. Google trends data show a big jump in searches for hygge beginning in October 2016.

Spreading happiness around the world? I like it, now I want to go visit Denmark.

Nor is Denmark the only country that has a word for a concept similar to hygge—the Norwegians have koselig, the Swedes mysig, the Dutch gezenlligheid, and the Germans gemütlichkeit.

qz.com...
I find it odd that there is no English equivalent to the word hygge. The meaning seems to get lost in translation. The Germans have a word to describe a state of overall well-being and happiness, Gemütlichkeit, yet Americans do not?!

“Be the change you want to see in the world”.

I strongly feel that we should spend more time actively attempting to spread hygge to those around us, hence the point of this thread, or even better yet let’s create our own English equivalence.

Are Americans Becoming Less Happy

If you use ATS as a criteria for the general population; we are totally and irrevocably headed for a cultural Armageddon.

How it will manifest itself is uncertain but I feel there will be blood in the streets. There's also a negative side!

originally posted by: olaru12

Are Americans Becoming Less Happy

If you use ATS twitter as a criteria for the general population; we are totally and irrevocably headed for a cultural Armageddon.

How it will manifest itself is uncertain but I feel there will be blood in the streets. There's also a negative side!

twitter is like ATS gone full-retard on peyote'. There are more conspiracy minded folks on that platform than any other I know of - most are verified accounts who work for the US government or media or are against the US government and media.

These are the facts.

originally posted by: olaru12

Are Americans Becoming Less Happy

If you use ATS as a criteria for the general population; we are totally and irrevocably headed for a cultural Armageddon.

How it will manifest itself is uncertain but I feel there will be blood in the streets. There's also a negative side!

There certainly does seem to be many members here that share your sentiment yet I could not disagree with it more. There are many negative political aspects but cultural Armageddon? American Culture is doing quite well and it is evolving faster now than perhaps it ever has before.

I believe much of the problem is in personal perspectives and opinions that are rooted in misplaced distrust. Things are not as bad as they seem.

originally posted by: Sublimecraft

originally posted by: olaru12

Are Americans Becoming Less Happy

If you use ATS twitter as a criteria for the general population; we are totally and irrevocably headed for a cultural Armageddon.

How it will manifest itself is uncertain but I feel there will be blood in the streets. There's also a negative side!

twitter is like ATS gone full-retard on peyote'. There are more conspiracy minded folks on that platform than any other I know of - most are verified accounts who work for the US government or media or are against the US government and media.

These are the facts.

As sad as this seems and as much as I would like to prove you wrong I'll have to take your word for this as I do not do twitter. Just with ATS alone I can only handle so much. I tend to spend more of my time reading books or doing other constructive things.

By the way, what did Peyote ever do to you to deserve such a negative connotation?

a reply to: Sublimecraft

I'm fortunate that I'm financially able to go find some hygge; be it in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, or Sayulita.

Perhaps I'll meet up with that little cutie in the video. I'm sorry other Americans are so unhappy and I don't think
its going to change for a long, long time, if ever. Not my circus, not my monkey....

Peyote among other things opened my eyes when I was just a lad.

I find myself to be pretty happy overall, in spite of some of the stress that's going on in my personal life currently. In answer to your questions, do I think the government would step in to help if I needed it? No I don't, nor would I want them to, having the capability to handle my problems on my own is part of my happiness. Income inequality and government corruption do not impact my personal level of happiness, so those are moot points.

The Danish concept of having a network of friends and family to rely upon for happiness is something that I would agree with to an extent. That being said the only family I interact with are immediate, mom, dad, grandmother, and my spouse. As for friends, I have a few that I would consider good friends, everyone else I know casually so they don't really have a huge impact on my personal happiness either.

I don't believe the concept would apply to me however, as the happiness of others I'm not personally connected to is really none of my concern, nor should it be really.

Edit to add: Just noticed the social media part on there relating to happiness. The only social media I currently use is LinkedIn for job networking, and if you could call a forum social media that would apply too. However Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. do not play a role at all in my life. I had Facebook and deactivated my account last year, that actually increased my level of happiness in a very measurable way. I also don't watch broadcast or cable television, so I'm sure that puts my happiness up a notch or two as well, I know watching the news all the time has done nothing but stress my dad out constantly.

Happiness is a personal choice.

You will find happy people among the most disadvantaged folks and unhappy people living with every advantage life has to offer. At the end of the day we need to be content with whatever situation we find ourselves in and take responsibility for our own happiness.

Wake up. Over the last thirty years or more... We have never been able to trust our government. We have never been able to trust Big Pharma to be in our best interest. We have never been able to trust the agency overseeing our food.

We were happy till they start telling us we were unhappy and gave us so much credit which made so many of us all in debt. Sure the ability to spend made us good for a while, but then we looked back at where this spending took us.

They even convinced us we must hire expensive professionals to do everything we need because all the jobs making the things we need left the country.

The only thing lately that is different is the polarization of our society. Before we had a beer or glass of wine because we were having fun and being a little naughty, they made wine and beer good for us now, what fun is drinking anymore. We smoked whacky because it was fun....not healthy.

We ate Milk chocolate, now they want us to eat bitter chocolate, no wonder people are all bitter about everything now.

When they made things that are not good for us good for us it destroyed our belief system. Actually, these people are just trying to mess with our minds, beer and wine are not really good for us if we drink them regularly, neither is that chocolate. People will follow the leader if the leader tells them what they want to hear, where is the information coming from that says Alcohol is good for you? Well, liberal states drink more wine and beer overall. So, Liberals are saying being drunk is healthy I suppose.

Less happy ? nah

People should watch more happy news like CNN ABC and follow the autocompletion on google.

originally posted by: Metallicus
Happiness is a personal choice.

You will find happy people among the most disadvantaged folks and unhappy people living with every advantage life has to offer. At the end of the day we need to be content with whatever situation we find ourselves in and take responsibility for our own happiness.

There's a reason people in poor demographics Like India as an example are happier, they have less stress and live with large extended families, they have a lot of love and a lot of help from family members.

a reply to: Devino

I am american and over the last 10 years my life has gotten better and better.

I am happier today than I have ever been.