Cynical view of happiness.

[lisah]

I started thinking about this topic after reading the thread "Are you happy about your home town"  

The question I've been thinking about is somewhere along the lines of, how much happiness of yours is based purely on being better off than others?

I was thinking about this because I'm not from a very nice town, but I don't know if I'd be happier being rich and living in Dubai.

If I was moved over there as of right now and given billions, I'd be absolutely psychotically happy.  I'd constantly be thinking, wow, I made it out of that shit hole, none of my friends or enemies back home have experienced anything like this, it's amazing.

But if I'd be born there, and my neighbors were oil tycoons/property tycoons, they had gold plated diamond encrusted cars, 3 helicopters, a 13 bedroom house and I was in the same situation as them and I had been all my life, I don't think I'd necessarily be significantly happier than I am now.  Purely because I'd have no one to show off to.  All I'd be doing is keeping up with the other disgustingly rich people around me.  There'd be less stress certainly.

Now I'm not some hippy who says money doesn't equal happiness, because money definitely does equal happiness most of the time.

But I think I'd possibly be happier with a mediocre car, dressed pretty good in a room of guys where most people don't have a car and they're dressed slightly less well than me.  Rather than being a billionaire surrounded by other billionaires and everyone has everything.

An example of what I'm getting at is when I was in my early 20's I couldn't drive and I got on the bus, I was dressed pretty good and a girl checked me out, her friend said something to her like "If you weren't staring at that guy you might have heard what I was saying" So I knew she checked me out. I was happy because of that, more happy than I'd be driving in Dubai in a sports car where everyone else has a sports car and no one is looking at me because no on gives a shit.

Anyone got any thoughts on this topic?  I think it's pretty interesting.  I read an audio book where it talked about this kind of thing, how happiness is a feeling of comparative peaks and troughs.

I find that happiness for me is found in moments, not anything long-standing. Sometimes things might make me feel happy, like a new pair of jeans or shoes that are are nice and comfy. But, mostly, it is in what I am doing that I find these moments. Like spending hours in a darkroom attempting to perfect a print. Or, helping other people accomplish things.

How would you interpret this in the way of peaks and troughs?