Commentary: Singapore ranks high in happiness. Real life is more complicated – CNA
LIVERPOOL: When a recent report ranked Singapore as the third happiest city in the world , the online reaction was swift and deeply sceptical.
As soon as I saw the report, Instagram’s algorithms presented me with a Singaporean comedian yelling in his car about how the happiness ranking could not possibly be true.
The man cited excessive work hours, crowded transport and other colourful things I cannot mention in a commentary. It was clearly parody but going by the comments on his post – as well as similar posts elsewhere – his rant struck a nerve. As one might say in Singlish, “Singapore so stress, so ex (expensive), so crowded. Can be happy meh?”
Complaining is a seemingly favourite national pastime in Singapore , followed closely by queuing and manhandling Milo packets for plushies . (I mean, give it a break guys, the poor milo packet did nothing to you.)
But when eyebrows are raised at a report that claims we are happier than other countries we envy, we need to take a second look at what happiness could be, and how we might find our own version of happiness.
STUDYING HAPPINESS It would be foolish to try and define exactly what happiness means to each person , because not only do different people find different ways to be happy, they also have distinct understandings of what it means to be “happy”.
“Happiness” is an individualised concept. For some, it is synonymous with “feeling good” – a heightened emotional state. Popular media certainly enforces this view that if we are not in a constant state of some kind of happiness “high”, then we cannot be happy (more on this later).
Related: Commentary: Why are Singapore youths less happy than their elders? Commentary: In the happiness debate, sometimes the middle ground is where life feels fullest Scholars have not shied away from trying to work out what makes (or keeps) us happy. The study of happiness is multi-disciplinary and often involves psychology, sociology, public health, demographics and much more.
Researchers in various institutions like Harvard have also conducted (or are conducting) long-term studies to ascertain what makes individuals happy.
There appears to be some agreement amongst researchers that at the very least, experiencing a higher level of well-being – positive emotions, good physical and mental health, strong social networks, an absence of loneliness and so on – does roughly equate to a “happier” individual.
Hence, one will often see variables that can quantify well-being become proxies for gauging a population’s happiness.
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of that. We do need to work out large-scale trends in order to make policy and budgetary decisions. I believe the problem begins when we start thinking that happiness can be quantified in a measurable and therefore manipulable way.
As Goodhart’s Law states, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. It does not help when quantifiable proxies become the goal in and of itself , especially when it is used to “chase the rankings”.
In healthcare for example, setting distinct and quantifiable targets like waiting/treatment times may sometimes work, but can also lead to behaviours that prioritise the target over the treatment or patient.
At the same time, many of these proxies that rank us highly on happiness also take a lot of work to achieve and maintain. In other words, it might increase overall well-being but comes at the cost of higher levels of stress.
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