Where to find ingredients for happiness

“If you want to be happy, learn to think like an old person,” wrote John Leland in the New York Times recently. For some three years, he had been following the lives of six New Yorkers, all over 85. It taught him that “when the elders described their lives, they focused not on their declining abilities but on things that they could still do and that they found rewarding.”

Leland concluded: “Older people report higher levels of contentment or well-being than teenagers and young adults” perhaps because “they set realistic goals.” Only one of the six said he was afraid to die.

Youth that our society values so highly doesn’t appear to make for happiness. The same is true of money. A report published by Open Democracy, a political website based in the United Kingdom, indicates that, though poverty breeds misery, people’s happiness level peaks at an annual income of some $75.000 (U.S.).

Being poor doesn’t make you happy, but there’s nothing to indicate that the rich feel as good about themselves as their seemingly opulent lifestyle is made out to be.

What does increase happiness, however, is giving to others. Charity may be as psychologically beneficial to donors as it is economically to recipients. The celebrated generosity of rich people is often also a reflection of their own needs. Big charity events may also offer therapy to those who need to part with some of their wealth.

Of course, neither old age nor a charitable disposition guarantees happiness. As a recent report issued by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tells us, illness in general and mental illness in particular are virtually insurmountable obstacles to happiness. So is unemployment. The report indicates that people in countries with good health care and a high level of employment are more likely to say they’re happy.

Canada ranks fifth in the survey, after Norway, Switzerland, Denmark and Iceland. The United States — after Donald Trump’s onslaught on Obamacare and where unemployment is still high in many states — is almost at the bottom of the list. The richest country in the world and a bastion of equal opportunity doesn’t seem to make its citizens happy.

Jews may be an exception. Olga Gilburd, the author of the bestseller, Happiness the Jewish Way, cites the GallupHealthways Well-Being index that the Jews are the happiest people in lessthan-happy America. She writes that as a Jew herself she would have never guessed it because of anti-Semitism and the horrors of the Holocaust, which are still very much part of the consciousness of most Jews.

However, she believes that their reported happiness is because “Judaism encourages us to appreciate and find joy in every spectacular and routine aspect of our lives, starting with the waking moment.”

Indeed, gratitude is a fundamental tenet of Judaism, expressed in its many prayers and rituals. Precisely because of the burdens that history has imposed on us Jews, our tradition teaches us to celebrate survival in the midst of grief and fear. This may be very similar to the attitudes of the old reported by John Leland.

But, alas, it doesn’t seem to apply to Jews everywhere. An Israeli organization that offers emotional first aid to citizens reports much unhappiness in the Jewish state, even though Israel is listed relatively high on the OECD scale.

A plurality of the 500 calls the organization receives daily speak of the misery of loneliness that makes some callers contemplate suicide. Neither traditional prayers nor a sense of gratitude seem to dispel their loneliness. As important as prayer may be, community is even more likely to bring relief.

Being poor doesn’t make you happy, but there’s nothing to indicate that the rich feel as good about themselves as their seemingly opulent lifestyle is made out to be