{"id":5973,"date":"2019-09-30T04:11:18","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T04:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/churchedge.com\/illustrations\/index.php\/2019\/09\/30\/richer-but-unhappier\/"},"modified":"2019-09-30T04:11:18","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T04:11:18","slug":"richer-but-unhappier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/richer-but-unhappier\/","title":{"rendered":"Richer But Unhappier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Economist Richard Layard believes that although people are getting wealthier and living more comfortably, they\u2019re not getting happier.  He argues in HAPPINESS: LESSONS FROM A NEW SCIENCE that a \u201czero-sum game of competition for money and status has gripped rich societies, and that this rat race is a big source of unhappiness.\u201d  Studies show that only about 30% of Americans identify themselves as \u201cvery happy,\u201d a number that has remained constant since the 1950s despite the fact that incomes have doubled (even taking inflation into account).<\/p>\n<p>To judge by actions, consumerism is a cherished value in contemporary American society.  Yet trusting in more and better things to make us happy is misplaced trust.  Only faith in God can bring meaning to our lives.<\/p>\n<p>________<\/p>\n<p>Today in the Word, June 2007<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #20907]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Economist Richard Layard believes that although people are getting wealthier and living more comfortably, they\u2019re not getting happier. He argues in HAPPINESS: LESSONS FROM A NEW SCIENCE that a \u201czero-sum game of competition for money and status has gripped rich societies, and that this rat race is a big source of unhappiness.\u201d Studies show that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1222,272,3432,1112,3243,1578,3431,1396],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}