It is a common sense that everything has its optimal point. That is to say, everything goes too far beyond this point will be harmful to the thing itself. Can the endless pursuit of wealth by everybody be an exception? If not, how much wealth is at the optimal point? Let us see the following examples:

Facts

  • Diseases of the get rich from home increases with the increasing of human wealth, including obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, depression, etc.
  • Education problems of the offspring of the get rich from home. The world get rich from homeest Bill Gates knows well that too much money does no good for his kids.
  • In 2006 Vanuatu tops the happiness index, although it is ranked 207th out of 233 economies when measured against Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  
  • Bhutan’s gross national happiness (GNH) is decreased with its increasing gross national product (GNP).
  • The carbon-emission, which threatens our survival, increases with the increasing of GDP or GNP. Today, the get rich from home countries have exceeded over hundred times of what required naturally by our valid instincts. 

Clearly, all those mentioned above have exceeded their optimal points of wealth respectively. Then, how to know where are these optimal points?

Optimal Points

It is a common sense that the goal of our human life is to propagate offspring (Reference 1). Then the optimal point of human life must be the point where it is most favorable for the propagation of our offspring.

All of our physiological functions are controlled by our instincts or our ancestors’ successful experiences saved on DNA. Our instincts remain basically the same as those about 10,000 years ago without change, because in the recent 10,000 years mankind did not meet such drastic conditions required by the mutation of DNA to change our instinct.

About 10,000 years ago, our ancestors lived in the conditions fairly close to those of Vanuatu or early years’ Bhutan. They did not have so much wealth as we do today. Thus, our instincts formed at that time can merely handle rightly the small amount of wealth in that time, but are unable to handle correctly so much wealth as we have today.

This is the reason why we should not use our instincts to deal with today’s new problems of surplus wealth. In other words, our instincts are not adapted to the abundant wealth world today; therefore, what we do today is not in the valid or effective range of our instincts.

Apparently, to apply our ancient instincts to the new modern things is INVALID in many cases. It includes all kinds of happiness in our life, such as those from modern competition, having artificially delicious foods, traveling by modern facilities, etc.

To make our happiness valid means to keep things from going too far beyond their optimal points.

Conclusion

To be happy, we must check wisely against all kinds of invalid happiness, including exchangeable wealth. (Reference 1- 6)

References: #1. W. Ying, 2009, articlesbasee.com, “Happy Life, Instincts, Wisdom, and Human Computer System.”  #2. ibid, “Valid Happiness, Instinct and Wisdom.”  #3. ibid, ” Competing Instinct-Blindly or Instinct-Wisely.”  #4. ibid, “Delicious Taste, Health, Instinct and Wisdom.”  #5. ibid, ” Sense of Beauty, Valid or Not?”  #6. ibid, ” Travel of Pleasure, Valid or Not?”  

 

You may reprint this article online and in print provided the links remain live and the content remains unaltered (including the “About the author” message).

-- Comments