VTsIOM published a new index of happiness of Russians. According to the survey, it is still at a record height: 83% of Russians today feel themselves to some extent happy people, despite the economic crisis in the country, the disturbing and fragile world around.
True, according to Gallup International, until recently the figures were slightly different: in Russia at the end of 2014, the happiness index was 59%. But this, nevertheless, is almost twice as much as at the end of 2013 (24%). That is, we can state a sharp increase in happy people in Russia. In the global ranking of happiness, Russia at the end of 2014 was already in 16th place next to countries such as Brazil and Poland, while a year earlier it was in 12th place from the bottom among 65 countries participating in the survey2.
What makes people feel happy? What does it depend on? Where do they draw the potential to be and remain happy? For example, more than a third of the Russians surveyed (35%) reported that happiness brings them peace and prosperity in the family, 21% — children and grandchildren, 18% — the health of loved ones. 13% associate their happiness with life successes, achievements, 9% — with a good job and study. Psychologists and sociologists, however, believe that a narrow range of «sources of happiness» (family, children) indicates that compensatory mechanisms are involved, which consciousness uses to distract from the problems associated with the crisis. But the “margin of safety” of these mechanisms is still sufficient, because Russians have shown such an index of happiness throughout their modern history, regardless of any cataclysms.
In general, why a person is happy, or rather feels like that, is a mystery. This is probably such a great underlying desire, everyone’s inner zen. Some believe that there is a certain “happiness gene” and that there are peoples who simply have it in their DNA. And it is not very important for them how they live — good or bad, they are still happy and enjoy life. According to the researchers of this “happiness gene”, there is an allele in the DNA of such people that enhances sensory satisfaction and reduces physical and emotional pain.
- Can you be happy?
Like it or not, the fact is that happiness does not always depend on material wealth. It is no coincidence that, according to various international surveys, among the happiest in the neighborhood are both the population of developed countries and those whose material standard of living differs by an order of magnitude. Obviously, you can be happy on an empty stomach. Moreover, people in countries that are not very well-fed are accustomed to being content with little, and therefore they have even more reasons to be happy. They are accustomed to rejoice and feel happy simply because they live. By the way, the high index of happiness in Africa, which is now perhaps the happiest continent on earth, is associated, among other things, with the fact that 73% of Africans are satisfied with the life that they have.
Of course, the main question is what someone understands by happiness. We are all fixated only on ourselves, our relationships, our gaze, like a probe, looks through only the limited depth of our own personality. But it is so natural that there is still a look around and upward, directed away from us and stopping not only at its own kind. Now I am not talking about grace, but only about what makes us related to the world, to nature. And there a person sometimes really feels happy.
Nevertheless, apparently, this sense of self is important in order not to fall into depression. And it’s not fashionable now to admit to being in a bad mood. “We do everything in a positive way” — this is the motto of today. (We used to be told that margarine was the best way to cook.)
Although personally I have never considered happiness the purpose of life. Probably, and now I don’t think so. Happiness is something fleeting, rare, «caliph for an hour.» They say that Tolstoy counted only four minutes of happiness in his life. And for the sake of these moments a person lives? Is this the meaning of his life?
Many do not think about happiness at all, but think about how to avoid trouble, numerous troubles and traps that await a person on the path of life. It is human nature to count more from the opposite: how to avoid rather than gain. Happiness is too subjective, a opportunistic state of a person: for some it is the starry sky above their heads, and for others it is a piece of bread, the birth of a child or a winning ticket to the lottery.
1 wciom.ru/news/ratings/indeks_schastya
2 Gallup Research: Global Happiness Index 2015, gtmarket.ru