It has been proven in developed countries that economic growth does not necessarily increase happiness or life satisfaction. In pursuit of the ideal of welfare, the modern welfare system in Europe has undergone repeated trial and error. This transition can be seen as a history that shows that happiness cannot be achieved through economic power and welfare policies alone. It would be a blunt statement to assert that a perfect welfare society cannot exist in this world. In Europe, it seems that they have come to the conclusion that self-help is an essential element for humans to live in pursuit of happiness. They have hypothesized that the social foundation for humans to live must be built on the premise of respecting self-help efforts.
Research on happiness at Harvard University and other institutions has revealed several interesting findings. One of them is that young people in many countries have low happiness scores. This low tendency is due to the increased opportunities to compare oneself with others through smartphones and social media. Due to the influence of social media, a tendency for young people to have low happiness levels has been observed in many countries. The hypothesis that explains this is the relative hypothesis. According to the relative hypothesis, if you compare yourself to others and find yourself in a superior position, you feel happy. If you are in an inferior position, you feel unhappy. This is a psychological state in which you are concerned about your inferiority because you compare yourself to others. Of course, there are people who remain in this state and those who try to break it. There are also people who accept the existence of inequality and work hard to rise to a higher position. The factors that promote this rate of rise are external factors such as political, economic, and cultural waves. These factors are greatly involved in familiar happiness and unhappiness.
Recently, diagnostic technology has advanced, and a method of self-diagnosis has been established that can measure an individual’s happiness level quite accurately. There are an increasing number of cases in which companies that use this method increase the happiness of their employees and improve their performance. Every time an employee experiences a moment of happiness, positive emotions are generated, which increases creativity and innovation, which in turn leads to a virtuous cycle in which business performance is improved. It has also been found that if companies and managers create happy and cheerful workplaces, sick leave will decrease and medical costs will decrease. On the other hand, employees with low levels of happiness are more likely to take sick leave and are considered to perform less well than other employees. One way to increase happiness seems to be to build good relationships. Companies that embody this may be on the path to success.
