Commentary: Singapore ranks high in happiness. Real life is more complicated

CNA

a day ago

LIVERPOOL: When a recent report ranked Singapore as the third happiest city in the world, the online reaction was swift and deeply sceptical.
As soon as I saw the report, Instagram's algorithms presented me with a Singaporean comedian yelling in his car about how the happiness ranking could not possibly be true.
The man cited excessive work hours, crowded transport and other colourful things I cannot mention in a commentary. It was clearly parody but going by the comments on his post - as well as similar posts elsewhere - his rant struck a nerve. As one might say in Singlish, 'Singapore so stress, so ex (expensive), so crowded. Can be happy meh?'
Complaining is a seemingly favourite national pastime in Singapore, followed closely by queuing and manhandling Milo packets for plushies. (I mean, give it a break guys, the poor milo packet did nothing to you.)
But when eyebrows are raised at a report that claims we are happier than other countries we envy, we need to take a second look at what happiness could be, and how we might find our own version of happiness.
STUDYING HAPPINESS
It would be foolish to try and define exactly what happiness means to each person, because not only do different people find different ways to be happy, they also have distinct understandings of what it means to be 'happy'.
'Happiness' is an individualised concept. For some, it is synonymous with 'feeling good' - a heightened emotional state. Popular media certainly enforces this view that if we are not in a constant state of some kind of happiness 'high', then we cannot be happy (more on this later).
Scholars have not shied away from trying to work out what makes (or keeps) us happy. The study of happiness is multi-disciplinary and often involves psychology, sociology, public health, demographics and much more.
Researchers in various institutions like Harvard have also conducted (or are conducting) long-term studies to ascertain what makes individuals happy.
There appears to be some agreement amongst researchers that at the very least, experiencing a higher level of well-being - positive emotions, good physical and mental health, strong social networks, an absence of loneliness and so on - does roughly equate to a 'happier' individual.
Hence, one will often see variables that can quantify well-being become proxies for gauging a population's happiness.
There's nothing wrong with a bit of that. We do need to work out large-scale trends in order to make policy and budgetary decisions. I believe the problem begins when we start thinking that happiness can be quantified in a measurable and therefore manipulable way.
As Goodhart's Law states, 'When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure'. It does not help when quantifiable proxies become the goal in and of itself, especially when it is used to 'chase the rankings'.
In healthcare for example, setting distinct and quantifiable targets like waiting/treatment times may sometimes work, but can also lead to behaviours that prioritise the target over the treatment or patient.
At the same time, many of these proxies that rank us highly on happiness also take a lot of work to achieve and maintain. In other words, it might increase overall well-being but comes at the cost of higher levels of stress.
WHO IS TO SAY WHAT MAKES ONE HAPPY?
Different disciplines will also approach the condition of happiness in non-identical ways. Some might try to look for replicable results, others use measurable proxies (as above), others take a more critical bent, asking if our definition of happiness (whatever it is) might be the result of society's expectations, manipulation or exploitation.
With regards to the latter, we see this often when advertisers try to convince us that buying the newest, shiniest product or experience will finally make us happy.
Or when social media presents us with curated lives, implying that happiness can be achieved simply by emulating such individuals.
There is obviously a vested interest in claiming to know the secret to happiness, because one can then offer to sell that secret to others, or at the very least, position oneself higher in society's hierarchy as the 'holder of truth'.
All this is to say that happiness appears to be highly personal, not easily measured for an individual, and often left to subjective interpretation. It does not mean we do not try to understand how people live a good life, but that we must be careful about labelling and defining happiness for others.
CHASING THE HAPPINESS 'HIGH'
Does this mean that we cannot ever be happy? That life is a hamster wheel of survival? I don't think so - and without sounding like a wellness influencer, here are some thoughts about relentlessly 'pursuing happiness'.
We are rarely, if ever, satisfied with what we have.
Psychologists call this the hedonic treadmill (or hedonic adaptation) - meaning that once we achieve what we think makes us happy, we are no longer happy with that circumstance and want more. Material goods, a job promotion, a TikTok post going viral - it always feels fleeting.
That does not mean we give up and accept our 'lot in life'. Ambition is good, having goals are good. But we must also realise that as social animals, it is human nature to constantly want to compare ourselves to each other and pit ourselves in social and economic competition.
Even the simple presence of ranking who is 'happiest' in the world is an exercise in making one group seem better than the other.
If I had to align myself to one school of thought around happiness, it would be that happiness is finding meaning in what one does, how one lives or what one has, while recognising that there might always be that yearning for more. And, to (mis-quote) Australian film director Baz Luhrmann, 'if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.'