The Celtic Tiger has been replaced by Celtic anxiety: falling property prices, a roller-coaster stock market, rising interest rates and a depreciation of the feel-good factor. Are we happy yet? Do we even know what happiness is? Maureen Gaffneyanalyses the mood of the country
In the months leading up to the last general election the Labour Party launched a poster campaign asking the electorate: "But, are you happy?" It was an important but risky question to ask. Important because happiness has become a very hot topic, not just in psychology but also in business and in politics. In the era of the so-called therapeutic state the politics of happiness is a big issue, with some governments even setting up units to boost happiness levels in society.
This is all happening in turn because happiness - its expectation, its allure, its pursuit - has emerged as a radical new force in modern life. Of course, people have always wanted to be happy, but its pursuit has assumed a new urgency. No longer regarded as the preserve of an elite, happiness is seen as the legitimate expectation of the many: a sine qua non of a well-run and fulfilled life. At Harvard University, of all the world-class academic courses on offer, taught by world-class professors, by far the most popular and in demand is a course on happiness.
It is also risky, however, to ask the happiness question - unless you are reasonably sure you are going to get the answer you expect and want. This is because when we're asked if we're happy we automatically perform an internal audit, scanning our recent experiences for positive and negative indicators and totting them up into a definite answer. This has the effect of making us hyperaware of our state and can, as it were, rouse the sleeping giant, mobilising us to do something if the answer is negative or mobilising us to protect what we have if the answer is positive.
Let me give you an analogy. Imagine you ask your adolescent son the happiness question. You may have caught him during one of those golden moments of adolescence. He scans his recent experience - "I have way more money than I used to, way more personal freedom, way less silly restrictions. I get to drive the car. And am I way more competent than I used to be? Yes! The things I can do. My parents have no idea how cool my mates think I am. How cool I think I am."
That is probably how the Irish electorate answered the happiness question posed by the Labour Party. In their own minds, of course, not in their direct answers.
Canny adolescents, too, keep the good news to themselves, fearing that drawing attention to just how prosperous, in control and pleasurable their lives are might provoke parental admonitions, or even instructions, that they should get more serious about life or make a few sacrifices for the common weal.
So, to keep the parents off that particular dangerous line of thought, they answer instead by reciting a litany of the hassles, stresses and unbelievable pressures they have to endure. This complaining has the added good effect of keeping parents on their toes, providing the wherewithal for further improvements. And that is how, generally speaking, the electorate keeps politicians on their toes.
The problem for the Opposition this time around is that they asked the happiness question at the wrong time. A recent study by the Economic and Social Research Institute confirmed the findings of a long line of national and international research: Ireland, despite the challenges still to be faced, is enjoying a golden moment, consistently ranking among the top countries in terms of national happiness, life satisfaction and quality-of-life indicators.
Why are we so happy? At a macro level we tick most of the boxes correlated with national happiness: economic prosperity, material comforts, political democracy, freedom of the press, access to knowledge (through education and the media) and social equality, with freedom for women particularly important for national happiness levels, seeming to operate as a proxy for individual freedoms.
The relationship of national happiness to economic prosperity is not simple, however. Economic prosperity is really important for happiness until a nation gets above the poverty line, but then there is a law of diminishing returns. Despite rising incomes over a 30-year span in 10 advanced European countries, the proportion of people who say they are pretty happy rose only a few points, from 79 per cent to 83 per cent, with no increase in the proportion who say they are very happy.
At an individual level, people who are extremely rich are not appreciably happier than those with middle incomes. Ironic in a celebrity-obsessed age, but pursuit of wealth, fame or image is not associated, or only very weakly associated, with increased happiness. People who strongly desire money or material goods tend to be more unhappy than those who don't. The least materialistic people report most life satisfaction. An acquisitive lifestyle interferes with other life goals, distracting from those relationships - with family, friends and community - that are very strongly related to happiness.
We put a great deal of effort into changing our life circumstances - increasing our income, striving for career success, changing house and neighbourhood. Politicians also work hard to change and improve economic and social circumstances in a society.
Such changes, when successful, bring an undoubted boost in happiness levels. The trouble is that the boost is short-lived. Why? Because the evidence is that we adapt really quickly to circumstances positive and negative. For example, after winning the lottery or sustaining serious injuries in a car crash (including paralysis), a year later, people tend to be about as happy as they were before the negative event. Major boosts or dips in our happiness due to life circumstances tend to be short-lived. We adapt to our circumstances. And that is why, alas, politicians and governments often feel deeply unappreciated by an ungrateful electorate.
Living in a hyper-consumer culture also creates its own stresses. Much as we value choice, too much choice diminishes wellbeing. In terms of consumer goods, occupational choice, personal expression, how you dress, whether and who you marry, and if and when you have children, an extraordinary range of choices are available. Logically, of course, people can ignore all the options. But psychologically this is more difficult than you think.
The ethic of individual choice and control is one of the most powerful currents in modern society. The modern Everyman shapes his own destiny and is judged by the quality of those personal choices. Keeping your options open is highly valued. So we are forced to put increasing time and effort into decisions, even about trivial things. This creates worry in case you make the wrong choice. It raises expectations about how good your eventual choice will be and increases disappointment when your choice doesn't live up to expectations.
Maximising all our choices about work, relationships, holidays, clothes, leisure - even home decorating - can create an exhilarating sense of excitement and control. If overused, however, it can tip into feeling more tired, more anxious, more worried, more overwhelmed, more regretful, more disappointed, more frustrated and more depressed - and less satisfied with the outcomes. As one researcher put it: "We end up doing better but feeling worse." And, of course, with so much choice there is less tolerance or forgiveness for failure. "Only yourself to blame" is the unwritten price for personal choice.
Ireland may yet face those postmodern problems, but for now we are enjoying an extended adolescence, basking in that golden moment. We seem to have used our prosperity as an opportunity to enjoy stable family relationships, to develop our personal expressiveness and to show the world what we're good at. Given Ireland's economic, cultural and religious history - still in living memory - we have embraced prosperity, the good life and personal freedoms with unabashed relish, and we won't lightly let them go.