When my family decided to go on an African safari, I was very excited—despite the hepatitis vaccinations.
But it wasn’t roaming the plains in a 4×4 (actually, it was a Toyota van with leopard print on the sides) or lions and hippopotami (yes, that is the plural of hippopotamus) that stuck with me the longest. It is the memories of the people there.
Everywhere I went in Kenya, with the possible exception of military checkpoints, I saw people smiling and shouting friendly greetings. Even when they were trying to sell me something (or even steal something), people would grin at me. Our guide was cheery, funny and loved to joke around, even though his daughter and wife lived in a different city and relied on the money from his job to survive.
And while I realize I can’t exactly say that an entire country is happy because they smile or tell jokes, the overall positive attitude made me very curious. Clearly, the people I met in Kenya did not have shiny German cars or six figure salaries. So why were they so happy?
It certainly wasn’t because of the material goods they had or the services the government provided them. The Legatum Institute of London compiles a yearly “Prosperity Index,” which shows how well various nations score in things like economy, health care, security, and so on. It focuses, for the most part, on monetary values. The USA ranks a solid number ten on the list—Norway is number one. (Apparently, Norwegians are very well-off with their free government health care.) Kenya ranked 104. Out of 110. “Not wealthy” would be an understatement.
However, a global projection of subjective well-being done by Adrian White, an analytic social psychologist at the University of Leicester, indicates Kenyans are slightly above average in terms of happiness and life satisfaction.
Why is it that even though Kenya is an impoverished country, there is a lot of happiness there?
Since I wanted to know what it takes for someone to be happy, I talked to Lynn McHenry, who teaches Sociology. She told me that happiness comes from many factors, including work—not the salary, but the satisfaction of doing something—and from relationships with our families and our environment. These factors aren’t generally related to our finances in anything but the most superficial ways.
And perhaps that’s why Americans, despite all our wealth, are actually less happy than some of the poorest people on the planet. Here in this country, we run through our lives, going to work or school, going home, watching TV, going to sleep, waking up, repeat. We seem to think that, by doing this, we will somehow obtain happiness in the future.
But as far as I can tell, happiness mostly seems to come from spending time with family and friends and taking pride in work. The Kenyans figured this out a long time ago.
Tribe members hunt, build homes and spend time together. And that last bit is key: together. True happiness is derived from other people, not from the things we own or the balance of our bank account. Researchers have shown that any happiness gained from buying something—be it a new iPad or a snazzy pair of shoes or a multimillion dollar McMansion—fades quickly. The new things we have quickly become the norm, leaving us no happier than we were before. So becoming a bank manager does not guarantee we will be emanating rays of sunshine. Going to Harvard does not mean we will be treading the rainbow road.
Part of our problem, as a society, is that we judge others and ourselves around us by the material things they possess. If our neighbors get a pool, that could change our opinion of them. If someone says that they attended an Ivy League school, he may believe he is better than the rest of us. But clearly, none of these things truly make us happy. And our competitiveness about these things is actually making us unhappy, as we strive to buy more and have less and less time for friends and family.
We should learn from the Kenyan people: happiness is in our relationships.