HA P P I N E S S PA T E R N A L I S M: - BLUNDERS FROM A NE W SCI ENCE

Growth only means that the country rises to a new level of wealth, but the rich in that society are no happier than the rich used to be, and the poor are no happier than the poor used to be. [...] It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsiste. [...] The data According to the research, happiness is high activity in the left prefrontal cortex of the brain, and the data confirms that something often goes on there. [...] Decentralised Switzerland is one of the happiest countries in the world, and the Swiss cantons with the most direct democracy are the happiest.33 It seems like a sense of competence and efficacy gives us happiness – a sense of being in control of complex situations. [...] Often the negative feelings we get from the fear of future unhappiness (for example the result of a health diagnosis) is stronger than what we experience after we have received the bad news and begin to adjust to, and make the best of a new situation.