China Chronicle: Are happy faces going to stay with us or perhaps not so fast yet?

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  According to recent survey conducted by the China Academy of Social Science, our nation population experienced a downward trend on degree of happiness as compared with previous year.
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          Why more of the long faces in our nation? Didn't China about to close the book to be on track with another year of astronomical economic growth while most of the world still at the heal of an anemic economic recovery? This year we surpassed Japan to be the number two economic power in the world. The engine of growth is charging ahead and is not about to let go anytime soon. People should be happier and satisfy with the current state of the economy.
 
          On the other hand the survey would not come in with a big surprise. Let's face it, the dream of owning your home now getting to a point that you cannot reach it with a ten feet pole as housing prices keep escalating by the minute. That you have suffered a price sticker shock every time you do your grocery shopping. To add insult to your injury, here you are haggling with your pocket changes and turn around spotting the minority riches having a time of their life on a shopping spree. No wonder you are green with envy and cry out for fraud. All these unfortunate incidents will send your happy factor evaporated from thin air and sadness settling in your soul. 
 
          The uniqueness of China's unevenly economic growth has created two segments of unhappy people.
 
          Would you be in your merry self while half or more than half of your monthly income goes directly to your mortgage company and leave you with peanuts for everything else? A strange phenomenal isn't it? We are so afraid to be left out in the cold that we have to jump into the bandwagon of snapping up a house that beyond our affordability. We become a class of house slave, taking hostage in our own four walls and never get to see the day of the sun anymore.
 
          Incidentally, you just wrapped up your degree from a university. Congratulation, now you are belonging to a class of unemployed or under employed. According to another report, the freshly graduated will face a tough time finding a job this year. Thanks to the government, you are producing a class of unhappy people who cannot be absorbed into the work force. Even they do get hired, their measly monthly compensation on average would be something like three hundred more yuen than an uneducated migrated worker. Talk about a pool of talented college brains go down to the gutter. It is such a waste to our national human resources.
 
         Then again, money has always been a poor indicator when it comes to measure the degree of happiness, argued by some idealists. The idle riches tend to agree with this hypothesis. It is easy for them to say. They become worry free financially when they made their first pot of gold. Now they are bore with life and boring does bred unhappiness. Just tell the poor majority to put on happy faces while everyday they have to go outside struggling to make ends meet. My take is, money do enhance happiness. Without the aid of money on your side, you cannot achieve virtual happiness when you have to go out hassling for a few bucks in order to bring home the beacon. At the end of the day, I am venture to say that money cannot buy happiness but it can truthfully contribute to happiness. In other word, money can use as mean but not as the end of the road to happiness.
 
          Finally, happiness is an abstract notion, its all bout down to eye of the beholder. It is up to individual to view the glass half full or half empty. How you perceive your life is essential to your attainment of happiness. To me, happiness comes through with your own creation of a dynamic life. A life fills with a company of great friends and beloved family members. A career path you enjoy and with high motivation. An eco-friendly environment you appreciate and live in. To say the least, is to be in a possession of healthy body, mind and soul.
 
          So, my dear fellow countrymen, smile and keep on smiling. Life may be harsh but it is always present to you with many great challenges and a window full of opportunities for your cherry picking.  
 
                                          From Simon reported at Shenzhen