Why does the media think employment/GDP = happiness?

BlimpGaz

What I don't get is why the media considers happiness to be all about employment. According to the media, employment = happiness? When they speak of a country's happiness, they do it in terms of employment rate and GDP, as if that were all that mattered in life. They assume that GDP determines national happiness, when it does NOT. In their view, work and productivity are all that matters in the world, whereas romance, passion, love, sex, connection, friendship, feeling needed and needing others, creative expression, adventure, etc. don't matter and have nothing to do with happiness. It's as if the media is saying that even if you have no love, romance, passion, sex, friends, connection or adventure in your life and you are lonely, you ought to be happy as long as you have a ****ty job to go to everyday that keeps you in enslavement! It makes no sense! Is the media sociopathic?

Furthermore, most people get up for work every morning sluggishly, wishing they could sleep in. Unless they love their job, they work just to pay the bills and dream of retiring. So if work is something they are forced to do, why then does the media see work as giving people "ALL the happiness they need?" Why does "voluntary enslavement to pay bills" = happiness in the eyes of the media?

Why does the media assume things that are NOT true?! It's so weird! What is their problem? I don't get it. This world doesn't make sense to me, and it ought not to make sense to a rational sane authentic clear-headed person.

The King of Moo

Enough with the questions, use Google!!

skinny90

Because when the media talks about a country they talk about the country as a majority and not a minority...having a job gives people opportunities to achieve.be it own their house or travel te world

brummytom

What is your problem with employment, OP?


But yes, the media is sociopathic.

kumate_champ07

because when people have alot of time to think, they realise how unfair and ****ed up the world is.

BlimpGaz

The King of Moo wrote: »

Enough with the questions, use Google!!

I don't want factual answers. I want opinions. Sheesh! People today are more than a little robotic.

3rdDegree

Get a job, OP!

zenno

Where's my guitar.

Chuck Stone

BlimpGaz wrote: »

Is the media sociopathic?

Yes.

Cheerful Spring

skinny90 wrote: »

Because when the media talks about a country they talk about the country as a majority and not a minority...having a job gives people opportunities to achieve.be it own their house or travel te world

The reality is the majority of mortgage holders own nothing. Because technically the banks owns your home till you paid up the full amount of the mortgage (however long that is?)

And technically most mortgage owners probably don't even own their car-it was bought from borrowed money a loan.

Everything inside the home is owed probably?

The Backwards Man

I can't fight this feeling anymore.
I've forgotten what I started fighting for.
And if I have to crawl upon the floor,
Come crashing through your door,
And tell you. . . . .:mad:

carrick79

Why? What makes you happy BlimpGaz?


Please don't answer that. I don't care...

Wattle

Some people enjoy their jobs you know.

southsiderosie

BlimpGaz wrote: »

What I don't get is why the media considers happiness to be all about employment. According to the media, employment = happiness? When they speak of a country's happiness, they do it in terms of employment rate and GDP, as if that were all that mattered in life. They assume that GDP determines national happiness, when it does NOT. In their view, work and productivity are all that matters in the world, whereas romance, passion, love, sex, connection, friendship, feeling needed and needing others, creative expression, adventure, etc. don't matter and have nothing to do with happiness. It's as if the media is saying that even if you have no love, romance, passion, sex, friends, connection or adventure in your life and you are lonely, you ought to be happy as long as you have a ****ty job to go to everyday that keeps you in enslavement! It makes no sense! Is the media sociopathic?

Furthermore, most people get up for work every morning sluggishly, wishing they could sleep in. Unless they love their job, they work just to pay the bills and dream of retiring. So if work is something they are forced to do, why then does the media see work as giving people "ALL the happiness they need?" Why does "voluntary enslavement to pay bills" = happiness in the eyes of the media?

Why does the media assume things that are NOT true?! It's so weird! What is their problem? I don't get it. This world doesn't make sense to me, and it ought not to make sense to a rational sane authentic clear-headed person.

Sorry to get in the way of your rant, but there are several international happiness indices, and they look at measures such as time spent with friends, etc. Multiple newspapers and websites report on these annually.

dartup

cry me a river

The Backwards Man

southsiderosie wrote: »

Sorry to get in the way of your rant, but there are several international happiness indices, and they look at measures such as time spent with friends, etc. Multiple newspapers and websites report on these annually.

How dare you, how very dare you, introduce facts and figures into this thread?:mad:

PickledLime

Wattle wrote: »

Some people enjoy their jobs you know.

Most don't though.

Dare I say it, I've been trying to articulate what BlimpGaz has been saying (not just about the media's opinion, but in general), and it's the sanest opinion I've read in some time.

It's completely true. Stop and think how much of your waking week is spent doing stuff you don't want to do. It's dizzying. I work part time - I can get by as I don't feel the need to have the latest everything. But I'm not just getting by, I'm loving it as I have tonnes of free time that I didn't have a few years back. Time to enjoy myself.

Don't care what anyone else thinks, we're all gonna end up cold in the ground anyway, might as well soak up as much 'me' time during the interim as possible.

BlimpyBoy

BlimpGaz wrote: »

What I don't get is why the media considers happiness to be all about employment. According to the media, employment = happiness? When they speak of a country's happiness, they do it in terms of employment rate and GDP, as if that were all that mattered in life. They assume that GDP determines national happiness, when it does NOT. In their view, work and productivity are all that matters in the world, whereas romance, passion, love, sex, connection, friendship, feeling needed and needing others, creative expression, adventure, etc. don't matter and have nothing to do with happiness. It's as if the media is saying that even if you have no love, romance, passion, sex, friends, connection or adventure in your life and you are lonely, you ought to be happy as long as you have a ****ty job to go to everyday that keeps you in enslavement! It makes no sense!

It not that employment automatically makes you happy, it's that it gives you the resources to do the other things you mentioned.

Give romance a go when your dole money will only stretch to a meal deal in Abrakebabra.

You can hang out with friends for free but without money to do things you'll get bored quickly enough. Pint? No money. Cinema? I'm broke.

Adventure? I'm sure the junkies and the homeless have great adventures but I'd rather have money for a decent holiday.

Sex? Those brazzers aren't cheap. :pac:

Shenshen

Look at it this way :

If you're rich, that doesn't automatically mean you're happy. You could be, but it doesn't necessarily follow.

If you're woefully poor, however, it's very likely that you are in fact unhappy, as you're constantly worrying.

So while the media don't as far as I know assume that people who have money are happy, they correctly assume that people who don't have money aren't very happy overall.

anBoMor

Personally, I agree with the media. My inability to get a job is making me feel useless and no amount of friends/music/etc is going to erase the fact that I don't get even an email rejection.

It's not about the money, it's the self worth.

ToddyDoody

I do agree. I think the work machine has gone beyond its bounds and is probably inhibiting a better quality of life... I'm always looking for the emphasis placed on it to justify itself and it just doesn't imo. Religion (not mass religion but on an individual's level) puts it in context and enriches things a bit

looking_around

because if they told the truth OP, nobody would work ..and then where would the gov get it's money..

Personally, I like working part-time, I feel like I'm doing something but not living to work. I have me time and I'd have it no other way.
I don't think I could work a full time job, the 39 hours + 10hours commute per week that most people do. FAR too exhausting.

People think the more you, the happier you are. Most of these people keep chasing the next gadget, and I don't think they ever take full enjoyment out of what they have.

Agricola

It's a fairly basic equation. High unemployment equals social problems. People don't pay tax, revenue declines, social welfare increases, the country slips down the plughole. Low unemployment should equate to the exact opposite. So that's why its on the news agenda continuously.

Mr. CooL ICE

Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come

Lando Griffin

These negative threads really get on my goat.
I spent 18 years in education working hard so I could get a job and work hard for the rest of my life.
Iv been unemployed and its one heck of a boring life.
At work I can see people all day and sit at my desk doing my work in watching the security cameras.
It might not be the most exciting or well paid job but at the end of the day I can go to the pub for a pint and at weekends watch all the football I want either in the pub or at home.
I can leave it all behind for two weeks in Spain and go to the pub over there in my GAA jersey and not miss a bit of the championship. The best part of it is they all speak English.
What more happiness could you want.