ENVIOUS of West Australian wealth, Queensland’s sunshine and warmth, South Australia’s housing affordability, Victoria’s style? What about Tasmania’s um, er … happiness? Yep, it’s official. The Apple Isle, long drained of its best and brightest, is entitled to the biggest smile because it has the one thing the rest of Australia wants more of, yet cannot afford because money cannot buy it.
Illustrating again that the path to happiness is not paved with gold, Tasmanians sit atop Australia’s happiness tree, says a continuing online survey that to date has tested the healthy happiness quotient of 75,000 Australians.
Led by Anthony Grant, a psychologist at the University of Sydney, the survey reveals, however, a remarkable uniformity across the states and territories. Tasmania is happiest with a quotient of 61 (a score of 50 means an individual is neither happy nor sad). Victorians average 59, NSW, WA and South Australia 58, Queensland and the ACT 57 and the Northern Territory 52.
The survey also reveals a correlation between alcohol consumption and unhappiness. This might help explain the happiness gulf between Tasmanians and NT people.
Aristotle said happiness was the meaning and purpose of life, ”the whole aim and end of human existence”. George Sheehan, who wrote at length about running, drew the distinction with pleasure: ”Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.”
Dr Grant said it was more difficult to define than sadness, a state we better understand in its gradations. ”We need to make an effort to be happy, to build resilience skills and positive psychology,” he said. ”We’ve brought recognition of depression to social awareness but we haven’t invested in emotional well-being. People need purpose and meaning in their lives, particularly men who are less equipped socially to deal with intimacy.”
Tasmanian supremacy was not unexpected. Tasmanians were more likely to be in touch with meaningful life, Dr Grant said, because we’re happier when we’re healthier and we’re happier keeping fit in natural settings rather than the artificiality of, say, indoor pools or gyms. And Tasmania’s lesser wealth? ”Research shows that once you get to $100,000 or $150,000 a year – that is, enough for comfort – small increases in the happiness quotient require a lot more money. You need a great deal more affluence to be perceptibly happier.”
People who think more wealth will make them markedly happier ”confuse well-being with the possessions they own”, Dr Grant said. ”This is not about turning people into tree huggers but about recognising what makes us happy.”
But sometimes we confuse other traits for gloominess or despondency, in the same way shyness can be mistaken for aloofness. Are Sydneysiders unhappier than other Australians because – as Sandra Chipchase, the new boss of Destination NSW, the peak tourism agency, observed this week – we differ from other Australians because we relentlessly bag our own city? Perhaps it’s a sure sign of unhappiness. Certainly, housing unaffordability, urban crowding and transport congestion rank highly in public complaints. But it’s possible, too, that other emotions are to blame. The Sydney University historian Richard White has written of a particular pessimism influencing Sydney’s intellectual thought.
While Melbourne thought centred on social democracy being capable of building better societies, Sydney’s early influences were anti-utopian, convinced that individual success was built on corruption rather than luck or diligence. ”The flip side of pessimism is a kind of hedonism,” Dr White said. ”Nothing else matters, so go and have a good time.”
This might help explain why Sydney is the least parochial city, which makes us less likely to defend it. ”Sydney is more cosmopolitan, while Melbourne is more nationalist,” Dr White said. ”Everywhere else defines itself against Sydney but Sydney doesn’t care about them. It doesn’t have to define itself against others.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/apple-isle-shows-off-its-warm-inner-glow–in-the-most-natural-way-20111028-1mo9l.html#ixzz1c70sDnFy
