Happiness is...?

My sister, who is visiting Melbourne from the Solomon Islands, said something profound to me the other night. I was watching the news on the telly when she commented casually, “I wish the world was simpler. That it’s not so complicated.” And, no, that wasn’t the profound thing she said. That came later.

She went on to comment that she gets the feeling that people living in less developed countries don’t expect or demand as much and are generally more content with their lot than those living in First World countries like Australia. Having spent the last 7, 8 years in between PNG and more recently the Solomon Islands, she tells me that every time she comes back to Australia, she feels overwhelmed by the vast array of choices available to consumers here.

Coincidentally enough, an article appeared in the newspaper yesterday about a study which ranked Vanuatu as the happiest place on earth. This study, compiled by the New Economics Foundation, used three indicators to measure a country’s level of happiness: life expectancy, human wellbeing and the country’s energy consumption levels – or in ‘green’ speak, the damage done by a country's environmental ‘footprint’. (Source: BBC News, ‘The Age’ newspaper)

Vanuatu came first apparently because its people are satisfied with what they have, live relatively long lives and the country consumes little of earth’s resources in relation to its population size. Not surprisingly, its northern neighbour the Solomon Islands also fared quite well, coming in at number 20, despite the civil conflicts of the recent years. (Source: ‘Solomon Star’ newspaper)

Australia, on the other hand, came in at 139th (out of 178) on this index, with New Zealand beating us at 94th. In fact, none of the world’s wealthiest Western countries made it within the top 50. While Australia probably scored highly on life expectancy, my guess is that its environmental ‘footprint’ is probably what dragged its score down, given the amount of resources that our small population consumes each year. This brings to my mind the Victorian Government’s recent television advertisement campaign to urge Victorians to help save energy, which shows 50 grams of greenhouse gas emissions emanating from our household electrical goods and appliances in the form of black balloons. It’s an ad that is worth checking out. Click here to go to the Victorian Government's sustainability website. Click the balloon above or here to watch the 45-second TV commercial.

This also brings to my mind the 82-minute documentary-film ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’ that tracks the journey of two Sudanese male refugees from their refugee camp in Africa to America. In the documentary, we come to see how happiness isn’t necessarily correlated to living in a materially well-off country as the Sudanese young men struggle to adapt to the time-poor, money-oriented and highly individualistic culture of the West. Many of these other ‘Lost Boys’ also struggle to come to terms with the pros and cons of living in a First World country. America, as it now seems, isn't quite the heaven on earth that they thought it would be.

The documentary takes the viewer through the various experiences which the two young men go through from the moment they are first offered a refugee place in America, to them arriving in America and then having to face the challenges of adjusting to a new life and unfamiliar culture. Insightful but also funny at times, it’s well worth watching.

If ‘Letters to Ali’ (an Australian documentary about a young Afghan asylum seeker seeking asylum in Australia being detained in Australian detention camps) is an indictment of Australia’s tough asylum seeker immigration policy, ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’ highlights the challenges and dilemmas facing refugee settlers when offered the chance to resettle in a new country.