HAPPINESS, MONEY AND POSITIVE EMOTIONS

HAPPINESS, MONEY AND POSITIVE EMOTIONS

Happiness as an emotion affects everybody’s life. By nature, humans have desire for happiness and an aversion to misery.  As a domain of study, it has drawn attention of scholars from almost all academic disciplines ubiquitously.  The philosophy of happiness is driving economics of happiness and resultantly economics of happiness is impacting politics of happiness.  Within these travels the construct of happiness, experiencing the highs and lows.  From individuals to institutions to nation-states and to the world as a unit, peace and happiness finds an important agenda for affecting stakeholders and their will. Ideally, this will for nations or states is visualized as political determination of the ruling leaders. 

The circle of concern for happiness of all, keeps expanding across nations among major stakeholders.  This at times transgresses the intent of wellbeing for private and public good.  The public policies for welfare help improve conditions of people.  From the times of kingdoms to the time of democratic systems, ‘good’ of the subjects has been one of the key considerations for rulers. Apart from the concern for wellbeing of citizens, sustaining political sovereignty has also been the key focus of public policies.

The citizens need means to lead life. The means are driven by the purpose and the state through its rulers or leaders who assure that the means are provided and facilitated for the want of making lives of the citizens peaceful and comfortable.   The whole philosophy of political systems has been translated into dominating such systems which are driven by the economic interests and policies.  The journey from the ancient time to the post-modern era has witnessed the emergence of the capitalistic structure in most of the nations.  The power and control dynamics is determined by the statistics that is reflected through economic growth and visible development. This is quite evident from the times when Kautilya, popularly known as Chanakya, wrote this classic work – The Arthashastra, during the Mauryan period, circa 2nd century BCE.  It expanded the idea that it is the responsibility of the ruler (King) to look after the citizens.  Similar concerns were expressed by John Locke in the seventeenth century.   

The focus on economic growth and indicators has resulted in improving income levels and availability of money in the hands of citizens to use their discretion and make appropriate choices.  It has also complicated the life leading to building a sense of greed and an ever- unfulfilling appetite.  The insatiability in individuals has increased their problems manifold resulting in the disturbance of peace and happiness.

The idea of happiness stems from an inherent desire to live in peace and harmony with a sense of attachment to the nation and of brotherhood with fellow citizens.  Modern interpretations of this idea of happiness have given birth to mutually acceptable currency called money which could balance the transactional value.  Mutually acceptable currency in the form of money is consumed at the place or space called market for fulfilling needs and aspirations resulting in affecting happiness positively.  The extent to which such transactions keep converting in happiness, role of money is assumed to be good, but when such expected conversion results in building negative emotions resulting in stress, disturbances, and unhappiness, role of money gets questioned.

Ancient Indian wisdom describes the goals of human life encompassing the inherent values of the universe in the doctrine of purushartha having four aims as artha (economic value or material success), kama (pleasure or leisure), dharma (righteousness or dutifulness), and moksha (liberation or salvation).  These are explained through the Sanskrit epics like the Ramayana (written around 7th century BC) and the Mahabharata (written around 4th century BC).  The poetics of these great epics provided a moral defence for an ideal life and delved into the realms of society and polity.  The meaning of good life as envisaged in these works dominated the spectrum of thinking among masses of their times. 

There is an interesting interface among the four human goals (artha, kama, dharma, and moksha) in the fifth book of the Ramayana – the Sunderkanda. It postulates visions of good life in ancient India that have multiple layers, preferred individual satisfaction with current life situations derived through material success (artha) and pleasure (kama) over the pursued or ideal quality of life (dharma).  These domains of happiness coupled with the collectivist culture and reflective concern for community are engrained in Indian society, yet individual successes and achievements enjoy supremacy over public good.

The Aristotelian thought on happiness surrounds around the ultimate good of man.  He expands his views and expresses that the master art called politics enables the man to learn the art of living a good life.  It is political good which needs external commodities as wealth, power and friends.  It is all about living the life in such a way that it leads towards happiness.  For Aristotle the objective of life is not goodness for its own sake, but happiness.

The philosophical schools irrespective of their geographic locations have been the cornerstones in the development of psychological constructs.  The idea of Indian philosophy is based on ‘consciousness’ and it has its roots in broadening the knowledge base leading towards advancing quality of human life.  The manifestation of consciousness emanates from three fundamentals— sat-chit-ananda which is existence (sat), consciousness or force (chit), and bliss or happiness (ananda).  These three elements stay inseparable in the universe and are present everywhere.

When happiness moves from its philosophical understanding to its psychological thinking and practice, it gets expressed through emotions.  Hence, happiness is considered to be a positive emotion which is highly relative and subjective in nature.  It is relative because it depends on with or what it is referred to— event, individuals, objects or situation and subjective because apart from its dependence on varied conditions, it is extremely difficult to measure it correctly.  It is part of a larger construct of psychological capital reflected through hope, optimism, resilience, and self-efficacy.  

Emotions are related to events that occur (past and present) or that are expected to happen in future.  Satisfaction, contentment, fulfilment, pride, and serenity are emotions which are reflections on the past.  When individuals enjoy momentary pleasure and get involved in some more enduring gratifications through the activities they pursue, they experience a sense of joy which is reflection of emotions related to present.  Optimism, hope, confidence, faith, and trust are emotions concerning future.  Happiness surrounds all of these in one or the other way. 

Given the choice no one would like to be unhappy.  And all of us are working towards expanding the base of our choices and money plays an important role in that.  Yet if it drives us to think that with money, we can buy everything than we are missing the point. Money is a mean to the end of leading a good life or a happy life. 

Let us invest on building positive emotions and broadening choices. Let us not allow market to decide what kind of choice we would like to enjoy.

41 thoughts on “HAPPINESS, MONEY AND POSITIVE EMOTIONS”

  1. Pursuit of happiness is the ultimate goal of life has been acknowledged all along the ages. The equation is skewed when one man’s happiness is another man’s distress. The business tycoon’s happiness lies in accumulating wealth through the misery of back-breaking toil of the workers. History is replete with slave-trade, exploitation of factory workers, exploitation of women for sexual gratification et al. The entire corpus of literature devolves around the conflict between ‘happiness’ and ‘distress’. All the battles and wars centered around whose happiness will prevail. Your ruminations are like learning the alphabets of a language, the intricacies of grammar creep in later.

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  2. An interesting read.
    I hope this prompts us into giving up the pursuit of happiness through material things.
    I am trying and discovering joy.

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  3. Beautifully presented vivid aspects of hapiness its historical and academic context in such a lucid language. “The Economics and politics of happiness” Is well explained.

    Keep writing such articles for us 🙏🙏🙏

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  4. A great read…
    At two instances the article suggested that happiness is a goal of life, which is to be worked upon and eventually achieved.
    “Money is a mean to the end of leading a good life or a happy life.”
    And the Aristotlean idea that
    “It is all about living the life in such a way that it leads towards happiness”
    On the contrary,
    The four ‘Purushartha’ in Bharatiya Gyan Parampara suggests ‘purposes’ of life
    Which are achieved across the 4 ‘Ashrams’ (Stages) i.e. Brahmacharya, Grhastha, Vanaprastha, and Sannyasa.
    This suggests happiness to be a path, purpose, which is ‘parampar’ i.e. follows a continuum.
    Always geeta to listen to your take sir.

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  5. It’s interesting to know how the meaning of happiness is evolving.
    It’s really important to contemplate on our own definition of happiness.

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  6. Superb and Well Drafted Artcle Sir.

    The happiness and wellbeing should be the part of course curriculum for Commerce Graduates. People offen says that Commerce people have no understanding of the Society, Happiness and Wellbeing. Atleast, this kind of article will certainly prove that their myth is wrong.

    Regards,

    Dr Rajanikant Verma

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  7. Sir, a very relevant and thought provoking write up. It is true that one keeps searching for happiness in material things without realizing that happiness may only be found within. Further, different things make different people happy.
    You have beautifully connected the ancient knowledge with the present context.

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  8. Such a good read!
    Thank you for forcing us to understand the various aspects of happiness. Will definitely carry it forward with me.
    Please write more such articles sir!

    Reply
  9. Such a good read!
    Thank you for forcing us to understand the importance of various aspects of happiness. Will definitely carry it forward with me.
    Please write more such articles sir!

    Reply
  10. Scholarly written …..appreciative
    To me, there seems to be no relationship between happiness & money because life is not as good with money as it is bad without it.

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  11. Scholarly written…..
    To me, there seems to be no relationship between happiness & money because life is not as good with money as it is bad without it.

    Reply

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