Conscious Choice: West of Vanuatu, East of Eden and South of the Loop

November 2006 | Whole Health

West of Vanuatu, East of Eden and South of the Loop

By Bernadette Doran

Despite all that mankind builds following the prolific example of nature, the results—Manhattan’s steel and concrete canyons, LA’s gazillion miles of freeways, the shimmering tower built by Rolex in Singapore—have never impressed me. I understand that anything we humans produce and call “wealth” will be a poor substitute for the real thing, courtesy of nature. And so my heart, given a ticket to ride, will always head straight for a rainforest, the one place it feels both fully alive and in alignment with some natural order.

I may not be in the majority here.

The 2005 “happiness census” conducted by the Pew Research Center clearly shows that Americans believe money does indeed buy happiness. The survey found that nearly half (49 percent) of those with an annual family income of more than $100,000 say they’re very happy. In comparison, only a fourth (24 percent) of those with an annual family income of less than $30,000 say they’re very happy, a proportional breakdown that’s remained virtually unchanged since 1972. Pew also found that married people are happier than singles, people who worship regularly are happier than those who don’t, whites and Hispanics are happier than blacks, and Republicans are happier than Democrats.

So I found it fascinating this summer when Disneyland was deposed as the “the happiest place on Earth” and the title was awarded to the archipelago of 83 islands called Vanuatu. This status was bestowed upon them by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), a self-described “think and do tank” in the UK, which decided to measure quality of life against environmental impact and create something called “The Happy Planet Index.”

This ingenious paradigm flip raised a number of questions for me: What is happiness? How much do cultural expectations shape our personal experience of joy? And where the heck is Vanuatu?

Turns out it’s in the South Pacific, and the islands have everything you’d put on the checklist for a fantasy paradise: Coral reefs, unpolluted oceans, exotic wildlife, untrammeled rainforests, and no income tax. Tourism is the only industry, and the population of 209,000 is largely unemployed and impoverished. Most people grow or catch the food they eat.

A further search of Vanuatu’s 5,000-year-history yields nothing that would make it an odds-on favorite for the World Capital of Joy. Human sacrifice, inter-tribal warfare, corrupt governments, tsunamis, volcanoes, epidemics of venereal disease and influenza from plundering Europeans, and wholesale pillaging of whales and sandalwood make for a sad, conquered-island history.

In determining their rankings, the NEF went around the world to 178 countries and asked the populace several basic questions, including, “On a scale from one to ten, if you consider your life overall, how happy would you say you are nowadays?”

The score they got from the people of Vanuatu was 7.4—pretty darn happy!

But this, amazingly, was exactly the same score they got from the United States (7.4) and the United Arab Emirates (7.4), and a tenth of a point less than the score from Costa Rica (7.5). (For country by country details, visit happyplanetindex.org/list.htm. )

So if they’re no happier than we are, how did Vanuatu make it to first place and the U.S. end up 150th? Because the Index adds environmental preservation as the final determinant of enjoyment of the planet, country by country, and we clearly tumble down the ladder there.

The NEF set out to measure “the average years of happy life produced by a given society, nation or group of nations, per unit of planetary resources consumed. The Happy Planet Index represents the efficiency with which countries convert the earth’s finite resources into well-being experienced by their citizens.” It’s an ingenious spin that’s never been served up before.

And so Vanuatu, with its light “ecological footprint” of just 1.1 on a scale of one to 10, landed on top, followed closely by Costa Rica (footprint of 2.1) in third place.

The United States, with its casual tendency toward environmental rape, had a footprint of 9.5 and so came in at 150 out of 178 countries. The luxury-driven United Arab Emirates had even heavier feet at 9.9, and lags behind us in 154th place.

But environmental impact aside, here’s what I think the survey also shows. If you live in an industrialized nation that values manmade wealth, clearly you will be led to believe you are happier if you have more of that wealth than less. Ask all those folks who are extremely happy making $100,000 a year.

If you live in a culture that loves the land, you will believe that natural abundance will make you happier, no matter what other daunting circumstances life may bring. Ask the gleeful Vanuatus, who rank 207th out of 233 economies when measured by Gross National Product, but who would rather keep their coral reefs and forests, thank you.

Abraham Lincoln said, “People are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” My mind may be lured by cultural messaging about status and stuff, and my landlord refuses to accept homegrown tomatoes in lieu of rent. But my soul knows the only place it’s happy is in a rainforest, and I can’t seem to find one around here.

Bernadette Doran is a writer, a teacher and practitioner of several energy healing modalities, and the founder of Industrial Strength Soul.

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