How do we explain that there is ultimately so little co-relation - 10% -15% - between wealth, health, beauty and happiness? according to Ed Diener, " it appears that the way perceive the world is much more important to happiness than objective circumstances." It is also about the goals we set for our own lives. Having a lot of money necessarily plays a role in the happiness of someone who has set personal and enrichment as his main objectives, but it will have little impact on someone for whom wealth is of secondary importance.
As for the co-relations highlighted by social psychology, in most cases it is unknown weather they act as causes or as consequences. We know that friendship goes with happiness, but are we happy because we have a lot of friends or do we have a lot of friends because we are happy? Do extroversion, optimism, and confidence cause happiness or are they manifestations of it? Does happiness promote longevity or do people of great vitality also happen to have happy dispositions? These studies cannot resolve such questions. So what should we make of them?
One may argue that some of these qualities, such as happiness, altruism and optimism almost necessarily come in clusters. One cannot experience genuine and lasting happiness while being extremely selfish and pessimistic about everything and everyone, because altruism and a constructive outlook are essential components of authentic happiness.
When the subjects of the above studies were questioned in greater detail on their reasons for claiming to be happy, they cited as major contributing factors their family, friends, a good job, an easy life, good health, the freedom to travel, participation in social life, access to culture, information, and entertainment, and so on. On the other hand, they rarely mentioned an optimal state of mind that they themselves had worked to establish as a skill. It is obvious that even when life's material circumstances provide "all we need" to be happy, we are not always - far from it. More over this " all" has no inherent stability and is bound to fall apart sooner or later, taking happiness with it. Only one or two conditions need to be missing for that to occur. Dependence on such conditions creates anxiety because, consciously or not, we are constantly asking ourselves: "Is this going to hold? for how long?," we begin by wondering with hope and anxiety if we can manage to bring the ideal conditions together, than we become fearful of loosing them, and finally we suffer when they vanish. The sense of insecurity is always with us.
