In many ways, South Korea is the poster child for the key challenge facing many developed countries. Over the past two generations, South Korea has gone from being one of the poorest to one of the richest countries in the world.
While grandparents may remember famine, their grandsons and granddaughters enjoy some of the highest standards of living in the world, while the country holds top positions in life expectancy, health-care efficiency and proportion of people with a university education. The economic growth achieved by the South Korean people is quite simply an amazing achievement. Coming back to Copenhagen after visiting Seoul feels like travelling ten years back in time. However, the country is struggling to convert its new-found wealth into well-being. South Korea ranks fifty-fifth in the World Happiness Report of 2017 and, more alarmingly, it has top ranking when it comes to suicide rates in OECD countries.
South Korea also sends more visitors to our Happiness Research Institute than any other country. South Korean politicians, mayors, journalists, university students and professors have all come in search of ways to improve the quality of life in their country. ‘For many years, we have been looking at the US as the big role model,’ one told me. ‘That is where we wanted to take the country. But now we are not so sure that’s the way we wish to go any more.’
And the US is a key example when it comes to looking at how we have failed to transform wealth into well-being. While the US has achieved economic progress and an accumulation of wealth over the past half-century, this has not resulted in an increase of happiness for the people. One of the reasons for this is inequality. If a country doubles in wealth but 90 per cent of that wealth goes to the richest 10 per cent, that is not growth. That is greed. And no, Gordon Gekko, when it comes to happiness, greed is neither good, nor does it work. And your braces look stupid.
DECOUPLE WELL-BEING AND WEALTH
It is September, but it is still warm (from a Viking perspective) in Copenhagen, and this Friday there is a clear blue sky. I leave the office a bit earlier than usual and cycle ten minutes to the central harbour of Copenhagen to meet my buddy Michael for a swim.
Today, about a thousand overheated locals are splashing in the water of what used to be a corridor for heavy shipping traffic. The first harbour bath opened in Copenhagen in 2001, after the city invested in securing clean water, and there are now a handful of these urban oases in the centre of the city. This is during the period when I am living on my friend’s couch. Money is tight but, fortunately, fun can be free.
In Copenhagen, I can cycle everywhere I need to go and so do not need money for fuel, or indeed a car. Regardless of how much I earn, the water will still be as clean and refreshing to swim in. Yes, of course money matters. Eating at the restaurant Noma may still be reserved for the few, but the Nordic countries have managed to some extent to decouple wealth from well-being for the individual.
I think what works well in Denmark is that enjoying a good quality of life does not have to cost a lot of money. If I lost my job and my savings, I would still be able to enjoy most of the same things I enjoy today.
Well, that is easy for you to say, I hear you cry. Try cycling in London – you’d be killed. That is very likely (it is the driving-on-the-opposite-side thing). Therefore, I think it is interesting to hear the story of Michelle McGagh, who went a year without spending a single pound. Michelle is a freelance journalist from north London and the woman behind the book The No Spend Year: How I Spent Less and Lived More.
CASE STUDY
MICHELLE
In 2015, Michelle McGagh found herself stuck in a cycle of consumerism – earning money to buy stuff she didn’t really need. She felt lured by advertisements promising that she could spend her way to happiness.
So, she decided to give herself the challenge of not buying anything she didn’t absolutely need for 365 days. What she would spend money on was the mortgage, essential bills such as utilities, including phone and internet (as she was working as a journalist), and basic groceries (￡30 a week).
‘It wasn’t easy,’ she tells me – especially starting the challenge in a dark and cold November. At this time of year, her life would usually revolve around going to pubs and restaurants, and now she couldn’t. ‘I was trying to do what I always did, but now I didn’t have money to do it, so it didn’t work and I felt a bit miserable.’
With spring came a big difference. It became more fun to go for walks and bike rides, and even to swim in lakes, and easier to explore London and seek out free art exhibitions and museums. She used sites like Eventbrite to find free film screenings, wine tastings and theatre productions.
‘I’ve definitely gone to more art exhibitions than ever before – my favourite being First Thursdays, where 150 galleries in east London open late.’
The challenge taught Michelle to be more adventurous. ‘I had to learn new ways to find happiness, so I ended up saying yes to things I definitely wouldn’t have said yes to before. I pushed myself to my limits, and I realized that I don’t need stuff to be happy.’ She even had a free holiday, cycling along the British coast and camping on beaches. ‘It’s something I’d never done before, and probably wouldn’t have, were it not for the challenge – and now I can’t wait to go again next year.’
The ancient Greek stoic and philosopher Epictetus once said that wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants. And while Michelle’s challenge may be too extreme for many, we could all consider how we might decouple happiness from wealth. When we discover that our happiness does not rest on the foundation of money, we have found a true treasure.
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HAPPINESS TIP:
LINK THINGS WITH EXPERIENCES
Save big purchases until a noteworthy occasion, so that the item is worth so much more than what is on the price tag because it embodies your memory of that time.
If you must buy things, try to link them with a happy milestone, memory or experience. For example, I saved money for a new chair but waited until I had published my first book to buy it. Or look for things that will bring you happy moments in the future. Consider how a purchase will affect your behaviour in time to come.
A few years ago, the Happiness Research Institute was working with a town in Denmark on how to improve well-being for the children in state schools. One of our recommendations was that the town should invest in having an apple tree for each pupil in their schools: 7,439 children equals 7,439 trees. When a child started at the school, they would be shown their tree. During the harvest, each class would get together to pick the apples. And, on the last day of school, the children would hand over their tree to a new pupil who was just starting.
As well as teaching the children something about where food comes from, enjoying simple pleasures like watching the apples grow and eating them, working together as a group to harvest them, the pride and responsibility that comes from taking care of a tree and handing it on to a new generation, I thought this was a great investment for the schools. The town council thought otherwise. So, some town somewhere can still choose to be the first that grants every child an apple tree. Surely someone must be interested in being the town that ensures every child has at least one happy memory of picking apples.
THREE INEXPENSIVE ATTITUDES THAT CAN BRING HAPPINESS