Affluenza and Happiness

I have written quite a lot about political and economic issues and I have a social-psychological issues that I thought would be interesting to highlight. You know Facebook can be interesting to people who like to observe how people lead their daily lives. I have nothing against my friends but I feel that their lives are a little too perfect for us to imagine living. It's like their lives are lived in snapshots. I believed that the problem is their inability or incapability to take risk.

I was reading this book called "Affluenza" by Oliver James and he defines this outward projection for material goods can lead to a host of psychological issues. My friends are not "materialistic" persons in the traditional sense, where consumerisms overtakes them. They are too smart for that. They are captured by material goods in that they derive satisfactions from external goods/ relics/ artefacts. They want to look "good" in front of everyone- they want to be "perfect". Take for example, their picture perfect photos are often defined by photos which shows them in various state of bliss- wedding bliss, parental bliss and any other forms of bliss by which they seem to surrounded by happy, like-minded people. I might be picking on bones but recently, I was reading a newspaper article where people can actually rent a buddy for their weddings- to give "speeches" and be "sabo-ed" during the crash party. You have to show that you are "surrounded" by people who "loved" you. I find it quite ironic actually.

Let us bring back to the book. The books mentions that these people suffer from a host of psychological issues such as insecurity, being inauthentic, always comparing with others and feeling inadequate.

Maybe we can expand the above a little. They do not feel genuinely happy and they can only derive satisfaction from shopping or from material goods and let their external goods define them. These are the people who suffer classic case of "Affluenza" where consumerisms and their goods define their self-worth. This means that their self-worth are defined by how much they make or how successful. But you see my friends are too smart for that. They have gone past them and actually I think they are too smart for their own good.

They defined themselves by how "happy" they appear to other's and how ordinary their lives and hence how blissful their lives are. Hence photos are extremely important to them. Wedding photos cost thousands of dollars in Singapore and some actually got in the debt because of their wedding- as what an newspaper article attest to. They are not addicted to Louis Vuitton, they are addicted to the idea of "happiness" and not happiness per se. They seek only external gratification through the photos and videos and not actually feeling genuinely happy simply because they do not feel adequate and constantly comparing themselves to others. They have to "out-happy" others.

Facebook photos can cause lots of envy. I was reading an article and it says that Facebook can actually make one feel depressed simply because you always see happy photos and you feel "left out". These photos makes us compare ourselves to other's and made us inadequate to other's. It is like why is other's living such happy lives and I lived such miserable lives. Hence I believed that these people have to out-do each other and in such tacit manner that they have post photos in enjoying themselves in the company of others without appearing to be jealous or envious of other's, or appear to compete with them. They really out-smarted themselves sometimes.

Outwardly, I believed some of my friends are happy but actually deep down inside, I believed that they are unhappy with their lives. These lead to poor psychological states of mind and very latent personality issues. All these will not lead to classic cases of high divorce rates, poor financial situation because the pull factors of appearing "normal" and "put-together" is so strong that they will not appear to other's to have "failed" in life.

But they will not be genuinely happy because they did not stretch their potential as they refuse to take risks that would appear to be out mode of being "normal". They are really double bluffing themselves which is an even worse case than a person who is genuinely afflicted by "Affluenza" or being addicted to material goods.

I am not even sure what I am describing has an equivalent psychological term or just pop science but I believed that these people has to go beyond the superficial. They have to look past appearing "perfect" or "normal" or "put-together" in front of others. They have to learn to take some risk in their lives.

They need to nourish their mind through enrichment, and not some popular self-help classes but rather following their passion and seeing where these classes bring you to. They need also to break their own stereotypes of others and of themselves. They need to broaden their definition of what is success to other's and not be taken in by "popular images" of success. With these in mind, I believed they can break the cycle of unhappiness that they are living in.