(February 21, 2014 at 9:48 am)Napoléon Wrote: I don't really think this 'living in the first world' has that much bearing on whether someone is happy or not.
I think it's because we adapt so easily, especially to comfort. Hence the term "first world problems" where we become anxious over the truly minor side effects of having it really good. I grew up in a slum, then a project, and so my current co-op seems like a huge step up, and the suburbs that I'll be moving to in a year or so seem like paradise. But to someone raised in affluence, all of it is too miserable to even look at.
Of course, there is also a mental or psychological aspect to it. I've always been a happy-go-lucky person, the type who somehow manages to find the silver lining in almost any cloud. So even when I'm dealing with lots of stress like I am lately, I still think of myself as quite fortunate and very happy. I can't take credit for it, as it's no doubt a result of whatever forces have shaped me, but I tend to minimize the bad and maximize the good mentally. I'm probably happier than I have any reason to be, but that's not a bad problem to have (omg, did it again).
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
