NHS Squeeze: Will It Mean More Work And Fewer Resources For Carers?

I came across the following in Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for a New Millennium, by the 14th Dalai Lama. It is an interesting description of the ethics of caring for ourselves and others and the authenticity of happiness that is grounded in qualities such as love, compassion, patience and tolerance.

Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.

 

Nor is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by concern for others. But that is not all. We find that not only do altruistic actions bring about happiness but they also lessen our experience of suffering. Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others' happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune than the one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace -- anxiety, doubt, disappointment -- these things are definitely less. In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves an experience of our own suffering is less intense.

 

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We Eat Well, Exercise But Die Before 30...

I came across this cartoon that inspired the title and reminded me of something that I've seen attributed to Terry Pratchett:

You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world's music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, travelling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don't have to die of dental abcesses and you don't have to do what the squire tells you" they'd think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say 'yes'.

As ever, I fall back onto consideration of Ben Friedman's The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. Friedman persuasively argues that economic growth is essential to moral, social, political and cultural progress.

I wonder why we are not happier or more satisified. Are we meant to compare ourselves to others or to an idea of what we wanted for ourselves and find our lives lacking? Or has economic growth given us more diverse and intense sources of hedonism but not provided comparable opportunities for engagement or a meaningful life? I find the latter difficult to believe. Yet I meet so many people who are relying upon an external or a change in circumstance (such as a lottery win) before they will be happy. The idea that we can change ourselves and be happy seems to be ridiculous or dangerous.

Ethics, Happiness and Caring