In the early 1990’s, after graduating, Christopher McCandless rejected society, gave his money away, and went to live in nature from what nature could provide. He wanted to be happy and isolated himself to go and look for it. Jon Krakauer wrote his story in the book “Into the Wild”, which was adapted to cinema by Sean Penn. Sadly, Christopher was found dead four months after he had settled in an abandoned bus in the middle of Alaska wilderness. He died alone. At the time, he had had no contact with anyone for a long time. In the diary he was writing, there was an interesting quote: “Happiness is only real when shared.”

This quote goes against the current neoliberal concept of happiness, which is extensively analysed in the book “Happycracy – How the science of happiness controls our lives”. At the beginning of the book, the authors Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz made use of the film “The Pursuit of Happyness”, starring Will Smith, to introduce such a definition. The film is based on Christopher Gardner’s true story, who was broken and homeless with a small child in his charge. Due to his determination, resilience, and optimism, he became a successful broker and a rich man with the help of nobody. Now, he is also a motivational speaker, sharing his experience and helping others to achieve the same as him. He is one of several motivational speakers and coaches that instruct people on what to do to become rich and happy. As happiness has become more important in society, the number of these professionals have increased in recent years. Currently, happiness is seen as individual-driven, the sole responsibility of each person, and disconnected from any social or economic circumstance. Yet, Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz emphasized the irony of how a man like Christopher Gardner, who “made it” alone, is now helping others achieve success in life.

Interestingly, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is seen as a self-made man that moved to USA to achieve the so called “American dream”, recently wrote a book stating that success (and happiness) stems from being useful to others and having a purpose in life. In order to achieve our goals, people need the help of others and should give something back in return. Of course, ultimately it is up to each individual to achieve their own goals, but the underlying idea is that each individual is part of a community. Therefore, “making it” by yourself and alone, like Christopher Gardner did, it’s quite unusual.

The book “Happycracy” concludes that the current obsession with happiness has fed a very lucrative industry (or the other way around). National policies and management guidelines are now aligned to “positive psychology”, forcing people to be happy all the time and, in a way, blaming them if they aren’t. In some cases, managers argue that companies should only hire happy people and fire those who are not because happy people are more productive and resilient. Resilient to toxic cultures, for example, while remaining productive during the many hours overtime, they need to work to do “more with less”.

Every year the ranking of countries by life evaluations, included in the World Happiness Report, is announced in the media. It is based on «individuals’ own assessments of their lives», as said on the website. This means that it is highly subjective and relies solely on people’s perception: what seems very good for some, can feel very bad for others. Furthermore, people can respond according to what is expected rather than what they really feel. It is no coincidence that the top countries are the wealthiest in the world. There is a general perception that money brings happiness, thus, living in a wealthy country will mean being happy.

According to Edgar Cabanas and Eva IIlouz, the science behind the studies on happiness is faulty and can lead to wrong conclusions. The indicators based on happiness ignore economic and social indicators which directly influence people’s lives and can also influence their perception of what happiness is. For example, the wealthiest countries are the countries with the greatest social and economic inequalities. So, being poor in a wealthy country means being happy whereas being poor in a poor country means being unhappy? In reality, in the wealthiest countries, “happiness” increasingly means to isolate oneself: you can walk listing to music and disconnect from the world around you, you can practice meditation and mindfulness to look inside yourself, you can buy books and courses to learn the techniques to improve yourself and overcome the obstacles and the difficulties that make you unhappy. However, despite all of this, people are getting more and more unhappy and depressed. So, maybe this is not the path to true happiness.

Britannia states that «happiness, in psychology, is a state of emotional well-being that a person experiences either in a narrow sense, when good things happen in a specific moment, or more broadly, as a positive evaluation of one’s life and accomplishments overall—that is, subjective well-being». So, forget about isolating yourself via technology, always pursuing something unattainable, living in permanent dissatisfaction. Happiness is nothing like that, it’s much simpler: if you feel good and feel like smiling, then you’re happy. It could be about a specific thing or a specific memory, or it can be a general feeling about your life. Of course, you can fake it, you can just think you are happy, or you can convince yourself that you are. Usually, in these cases, you can keep it to yourself. However, if it is a true feeling of happiness, you want to share it with other people. You have the tools to distinguish the difference: don’t think and don’t analyse, just feel.