Hearty Stew

For anyone accustomed to bathrooms, clean water, electricity, stoves, wood floors, personal or pubic transportation, television, restaurants, mattresses, cooking oil, shoes, a regular paycheck and other items meant to improve lives I have one question: are you happy?

By contrasting such comfortable lives with the rest of the world one would expect Americans to be the happiest people in Earths history. But it is not so. In Gregg Easterbrook's book, The Progress Paradox, he reviews hundreds of recent studies regarding happiness in America as related to wealth and concludes that American's (including the rich) are not any happier than we were a half century ago despite real average income doubling in that time. And compared to much of the rest of the world Americans can actually be considered unhappy.

Where the indigenous Ngabe people of Panama live life is stripped down and hard. Manual labor is a daily lifelong duty- cutting, planting, harvesting and preparing food, building living structures, hauling water from nearby streams, hiking everywhere, etc. They have to do this in either blistering sun or drowning rain -there's no in-between- with high rates of sickness and infant mortality and a low life expectancy. Rates of low education means that you are very lucky to work on a farm for $5/day for one month every year. Families here earn less than $500/year; you made that last week if you get $12.50/hour. If you are a high school dropout pulling minimum wage at McDonalds, in one year you make more than a family here does in thirty!

In the United States and elsewhere -where status is determined by how much one makes and not necessarily by how much good they do or happy they are- maybe we should acknowledge which is more important and judge success on that.

Although no studies have ever been done on Ngabe happiness, it is not hard to see that they are thoroughly happy people who relish each others' company and love to laugh, tell stories, joke, and gossip. And after spending some time here it is easy to see why.

Family clusters share in meaningful work tilling the soil under the sun. This work provides exercise and produces delicious and healthy vegetables, fruits, and grains to feed their huge families (any extra is given to other families). They are always outside experiencing beautiful views, lush greenery, and constant excitement from weather (incredible storms), animals (everywhere), and visitors (constant). They know their land deeply because they generally live on one plot their entire lives. They make beautiful bags and sombreros out of natural dyes and materials as well as other useful crafts -the knowledge of which has been passed down through generations.

These are things that have left many of our families in the last couple generation and I suspect evidence of reduced happiness in the United States is more than a correlation to these lost values and skills; it's a causation. So we see that comfort and cash are but two ingredients in the stew that is our lives. We're missing the meat and potatoes, without which we're left hungry and wanting more.