Americans are obsessed in self-esteem and self-improvement. Benjamin Franklin, the witty founding father, had tried to improve himself continuously throughout his life. For example, in his seventies, he still listed ten things to improve his morality. Surely he later admitted that not all of them had achieved success, but he concluded that it helped in many ways (A recommended book is “Benjamin Franklin, an American life”).

Don’t get me wrong, obsessing in self-improvement is a highly appraised virtue. Studies have shown that those who continuously revamp themselves eventually become winners. There is also a whole branch of psychology studying this issue. Dr. Abraham Maslow pioneered the humanity research which brought the concept of hierarchy of needs to the mainstream of psychology. Many publications, for both researcher and laymen, have flooded the market. Self-improvement books are confirmed money cows.

The aim of self-improvement is to make you feel success. i.e., to answer the question “are you happy with your life?” To accommodate people’s forever pursuing happiness, this week’s Time magazine (www.time.com) featured its cover story on happiness. It assessed happiness from many angles, including marriage, religion, money, and also how to improve one’s happiness.

First of all, to improve your happiness, you must know whether you are happier than other people. Time magazine generously provided a five-component questionnaire to let you test yourself (http://www.time.com/time/2005/happiness/graphics/quiz.html). Surprisingly, the questionnaire seems to me inadequate, if not wrong. It significantly biased towards old, established people.

For example, the first question: “in most ways, my life is close to ideal.” This is absurd. For many young people who are still in school or just start their jobs, it is never ideal. The second question: “the condition of my life is excellent”. Well this again sounds stupid. For many young people living in crapped apartments and working in crowd office cubicles, it can hardly say the condition of life is excellent. The third one is a universal question (and freqently appeared in many surveys): “I am satisfied with my life”. Well, for an ambitious young man, he never satisfied with his life. There are always more things to do.

The fourth question is interesting: “so far I have gotten the most important things I want in my life”. Am I retired? It seems to me I have at least ten most important things in the near future, let alone the whole life. The fifth question is religiously questionable: “if I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing”. Well, in Christianity, all of us either go to heaven or go to hell, no one can return the earth for another circle of life. I think in Buddhism, good people can reborn in the human form (not necessary the same one as before), while bad people may become pig or even slug after a prolonged torture in hell. In terms of this, it is more attractive to believe in Buddhism than to stick with Christian. Anywhere, for me, I would change almost everything if there is a chance of reborn. To sum up, I unfortunately fell into the category of extreme unhappiness, or at most slight unhappiness. What a miserable life I have!

Another interesting survey showed that by recording daily lives of 900 Texas women, the five most joyful events were: sex, socializing, relaxing, praying or meditating, and eating. The taking care of children was considered as one of the most negative events, together with housework. Oops, something wrong with people’s family responsibility? Well, to me, this is exactly what happens in life. Everybody talks about the love of having children and working in house care stuff, but almost all the time you will hear the complain of bugging children and tiresome housework. It is certainly not as joyful as having sex and relaxation. This also points out the potential crisis of traditional family structure. Housewives spend most of their time on taking care of children, doing chores, and driving around the town for kids’ extra-curriculum training. They are constantly in negative situations. Solution? Having more sex with your wife! Incidently, this is also the 2005 new year recommendation in US News magazine. Check it out: www.usnews.com.

To fix this apparent contradiction of the question about “taking care of kids”, the Time reporters provided another array of results showing that “having children” is among the most happiest things in people’s lives. The authors correctly pointed out that the difference in the general impression and the daily survey is that the daily events are transitory. It seems to me that for some events, daily suffering won’t counteract the overall joy. It is amazing that for some events, for example marriage, it is daily conflictions that eventually lead to a final breakup. Those divorced couples often complain “I can’t stand him/her any more”.

More thoughts to come.