Go to Dubai and see the amazing buildings there; the scale
of the real estate industry there is just mind blowing for a place with such a
small population. It is actually a well known fact right now that the Dubai
Police Force have a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and other ultra-luxury cars among
their fleet; and their reason,… “ For high-speed chases”.
Go to Abu Dhabi…and see the unscrupulous display of wealth
(conspicuous consumption at its highest). A prince celebrating his graduation
at Disneyland at an eye popping cost of $30,000,000…yes, you read that right. The
aim of this article is not to talk about my discontent with the spending habits
of the Gulf States, I’ll leave that for a subsequent article.
And also, conspicuous consumption is not limited to the Gulf
States, it is everywhere. Is it Roman Abrahamovich’s $500,000,000 yacht, or is
an $80,000 a night bedroom at one of the most luxurious hotels in the world…you
get my point.
At this point in human history, we might think we are at the
peak of greed, but I strongly believe the worst is still to come. Corporations
have gotten big, gotten mega, and now are getting ultra-large. And worst still,
they have gotten powerful too, really powerful. This phenomenon is not limited only
corporations, but nations too. Consider the $845 billion valuation of Apple
Inc, or the valuation of Time Warner.
Corporations and nations are just a minor focus of this
article. The prime focus is on the unwritten rules of personal success that
have been written by society and imposed on individuals. You see, society has a
way of policing individuals to conform to certain laid don principles. One of
those areas where principles have been imposed on individuals is the area of
success.
SUCCESS. What does it even entail? In order to answer that
question, let’s just consider this hypothetical example. In a hypothetical
town, there are two guys, Lyonga and Penn. Growing up, Lyonga always wanted to
become an astronaut, but his family pressures him into going to Business School
because they feel he might not make it into the field of Astronomy. He bows to
their pressure and is accepted at an elite business school. Due to this
decision, he is separated from his first love (the love of his life). He later
gets a lucrative job at an investment bank through his family connections with
a very huge salary, plus bonuses. He meets a nice girl at a seminar and two
years later, they get married and have two kids, live in a nice big house with
four cars and large bank account. They live a comfortable life.
Now consider Penn, he always wanted to become an artist, so
he enrolls into a state university to study art. He graduates after 3 years and
opens up a small art gallery. He is barely managing (financially), but goes
ahead to marry the love of his life and they have five children he can barely
afford to send to school. He lives in a small house with his family (his
parents included) and doesn’t even on a car. They live a very happy and
thrilling life.
Now if you were asked which of these two guys is more
successful, at first glance, most of us would choose Lyonga because of the big
pay cheque, big house and four cars. But that is not a very easy question to
answer; it goes deeper than that. Some countries have decided that the
calculation of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) does not tell the full story of the
economic situation of a country.
Some of these countries have come up with the
Happiness Index, which measures the level of happiness and satisfaction with
the state among the citizens of that country. At this point in time, the
Scandinavian countries rank very high on the “Happiness Index” scale,
unsurprisingly. These countries are not actually among the 10 richest countries
in the world, but they are happy, at least according to the Happiness Index
scale.
This brings us back to our two friends Penn and Lyonga. It
would be premature to say that either of them is clearly happier than the
other; and there comes the reason why I wrote this article in the first place –
society has fashioned its notion of happiness and sadness along very rigid
lines of rich and poor, children or childlessness, educated or illiterate, just
to name a few. I have heard many an argument whereby one person would say that
rich people are all very sad; or that childless people are also very sad and of
course also, that poor people rarely smile because they cannot afford to be
happy. That is exactly my point of contempt – it’s not as rigid as you might
think.
I have seen so many rich and happy people, poor and happy,
childless but happy people and the other way round. Happiness is relative. I
won’t go into the psychological nuances of what makes for a happy living, but I
can only assume you get the point I have been trying to make ever since. Let’s
just consider the two variables inherent in each of their lives. For Lyonga,
he’s financially successful (money), and for Penn, he’s doing what he always dreamed of (career satisfaction).
But
each of them lacks something. For Lyonga, it is career satisfaction, and for
Penn, it is money. Lyonga can boast of peacefully going to bed everyday without
worrying about what he and his family would eat the next day, or if he would be
able to take care of the bills, but the same cannot be said of Penn. He is
under financial pressure, and I’m sure that sucks some of the happiness out of
he and his family.
Happiness is relative, and has always been. What one person
considers as happiness may not be seen as happiness by other members of
society. Take wealth for example, I have seen cases where a family was very
happy when they had but little; but the moment they became rich, the happiness
disappeared. Each member of the family became solely concerned about their own
business or affairs and no longer had time for the rest. At the same time, I
have seen families that were happy in riches, but as the riches faded, so did
the happiness…it is relative.
With my argument set, I now rest my case.
