Happiness that doesn’t cost the Earth
BMJ 2022; 379 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o2338 (Published 12 October 2022) Cite this as: BMJ 2022;379:o2338Read our special issue on the climate emergency
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Dear Editor,
The article states that incomes above $100,000 have detrimental effects on happiness.
Will putting a ceiling on incomes at $100,000 make people more happy or make more people happy?
What are environment friendly behaviours?
- Give up night life and be in bed at sunset?
- Give up all activities other than those leading to productivity?
- Stop all research which does not lead to feeding and protecting lives: research such as in the fields of fundamental particles and space science, to name a few?
- Reversing population growth to bring the population to some presumed optimum numbers?
Environmental degradation will probably stop if humans will adapt ways of animals and birds, even better - the ways of plants!
It is said that the arrow of time cannot be reversed; probably it is true for human development too.
Article does not suggest which activities should be avoided and what activities should replace them.
It is easier to find fault than to suggest viable and beneficial remedies!
Arvind Joshi,
MBBS MD FCGP FAMS FICP.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Re: Happiness that doesn’t cost the Earth, a possibility for all ?
Dear Editor
Happiness, forever pursued by people and animals, should be less difficult to explain and deliver in these sophisticated, albeit dangerous times, we are surely entitled to assume ?
It brings to mind the surprise of Carlo Rovelli, who describes in his latest book how the efforts of modern physicists seem finally to have outlined the nature of ultimate matter. (1) Only for Rovelli, encouraged to read Nagarjuna’s writings, to discover that Nagarjuna had come to a similar conclusion, with no knowledge of quantum theory, about seventeen hundred years ago. (2)
Similarly, those great teachers, founders of religions, who lived more than two millennia ago, were sure that human happiness was attainable and accessible by all. The benefits, they suggested, were not only of transient, worldly significance. (3)
Is it not strange that in succeeding times, no one has demolished the ancient advice that happiness follows from virtuous actions ?
Just as unhappiness follows from non virtuous actions. Unless, of course, one realises that such advice threatens many of our cherished beliefs. It would be necessary, for instance, to recognise, even rename, the developed countries as exploitative countries, and who, especially the citizens of those countries, would consider such an option ?
1 Carlo Rovelli. Helgoland. Allen Lane, 2020.
2 Mark Siderits & Shoryu Katsura. Nagarjuna’s Middle Way, Wisdom, 2013
3 Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation, Atlantic, 2006
Competing interests: No competing interests