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Can Hong Kong become a happier place? Six practical tips for burned-out city dwellers
Despite its relative wealth, Hong Kong keeps slipping down the global happiness league. Follow these steps to raise your happiness level
Reading Time:5 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
The economic value of human capital rests on its happiness, according to a growing number of business leaders, politicians and entrepreneurs. And it’s something money can’t buy – one explanation for Hongkongers’ unhappiness.
While the city was ranked the eighth wealthiest place in the world based on gross domestic product per capita in 2016 by Global Finance Magazine, and Hongkongers enjoy the world’s longest average life expectancy, and a pleasant climate, the city also has the largest concentration of individual wealth in Asia and the richest 10 per cent of households earn 29 times more than the poorest 10 per cent. Hong Kong has been slipping down the league table of global happiness, from 47th in the United Nations’ World Happiness Report in 2012 to 72nd in 2015 and 75th this year.
Wealth and happiness do go together, but only up to a point. In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow famously described a triangle of human needs with five hierarchical levels: having a place to live, enough to eat and clothes to wear, form the lowest tiers. Being unable to satisfy these needs makes us unhappy. When global economic initiatives successfully lift people out of poverty and fulfil these needs, a country’s collective happiness increases. Beyond this point, however, the adage that money cannot bring happiness kicks in and the pursuit of happiness becomes trickier.
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What influences happiness?
How can we nurture happiness once our basic needs are met? In 1989, psychologist Carol Ryff identified positive self-acceptance, relations with others, environmental mastery, autonomy, personal growth, and purpose in life as important features of a happy life.
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Author’s TED talk on how to grow happiness
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