你也许过得还不如肯尼亚马赛人快乐。

However, when people do become wealthier, their level of happiness has not grown with the improvement of their living conditions. For instance, many well-developed countries in the West, such as those in Scandinavia, have instituted very extensive social welfare systems for their citizens. Almost everything they need in life is provided, but the suicide rates in those countries were surprisingly high at one point. According to the data from the World Health Organization in 1994, the suicide rates of the Scandinavian countries all ranked in the top 10 on their list. Apparently, to the Scandinavians, material wealth was not as important as we thought. Although the standard of living in general is much higher in the West, many people there are not happy. This is but one indication of material wealth not being in direct proportion to happiness.

然而，当真正有一天距离缩短之后，人们的幸福指数并不会随着物质的发展而增长。比如说，在北欧等很多西方经济高度发达的地区，国民福利非常好，人们应有尽有，什么都不缺，但这些国家的自杀率却异乎寻常地高——-据世界卫生组织 1994年公布的自杀率得知，芬兰、瑞士、比利时、丹麦、瑞典等国的自杀率均位于世界前十位。对他们来说，金钱、物质等等就不是像我们所想象的那样重要了。虽然大家都过着富裕的生活，但很多西方人却并不快乐幸福。这一切表明，物质财富与幸福快乐之间并不是成正比的。

Forbes once did a survey on 400 richest people and 1000 median to low-income and poor individuals in the United States, asking them to pick a number from 1 to 7, with 1 being very unhappy and 7 being very happy. The result of the final tally showed that the happiness index for the super rich was 5.8. The experts also found in their many years of investigations that the happiness index of the Inuit living in the freezing cold northern Greenland was 5.8 as well. Moreover, the Masai (an ethnic group of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya) living in dirty, dilapidated shed with no running water also had the same happiness index of 5.8.

美国福布斯杂志曾以美国最富有的400个人和另外1000多中、低收入者以及穷人为对象做比较调查，让他们从1到7选出一个数字，1代表“我感觉非常不幸”，而7代表“我感觉非常幸福”。最后的统计结果显示，超级富翁们的幸福指数是5.8。但是，在过去多年的调查中专家们还发现，居住在寒冷的北格陵兰岛的因纽特人的幸福指数也是5.8；此外，肯尼亚的马赛人——生活在简陋肮脏的草棚内，没有电也没有自来水的一群游牧民族，他们的快乐指数同样为5.8。

David G. Myers, social psychologist of Hope College in Holland, Michigan discovered an interesting discrepancy between wealth and happiness based on data from the US census in 2000. Myers found that the buying power of the average American had tripled since 1950. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to conclude from this statistic that Americans’ level of happiness in 2000 should be thrice as high as that in the 1950s? The fact is that people were much better off financially in 2000 than some 50 years ago, but the younger generation was not happier than their fathers; they were instead more prone to anxiety.

美国密歇根州或兰市或普大学的心理学家戴维·G.迈尔斯（DavidG.Myers）根据2000年美国人口普查的数据证实，“财富与幸福之间存在着一个有趣的矛盾。迈尔斯发现，自1950年以来，美国人均购买力增长了两倍。难道由此推算，美国人在2000年时的幸福感就应该是1950年时的3倍吗？……尽管现在这代人的经济条件比上一代人好了很多，他们却没有感到幸福。事实上，美国年轻一代比他们的长辈更加焦虑。”