[Written by Claude. Image credit]

I count myself lucky to know a handful of genuinely content people. They stand out not because they’re wealthy or accomplished by conventional measures, but because they radiate a quiet satisfaction with their lives that seems increasingly rare. Some emerged from genuine hardship—poverty, trauma, loss—and carry with them a deep gratitude for the stability they’ve found. Others discovered contentment through years of self-reflection, gradually shedding the expectations and comparisons that once drove their anxieties.

These individuals are the exceptions, not the rule. And their existence raises a troubling question: If happiness can be found by those who’ve known real struggle, and achieved by those who’ve turned inward to examine their values, why do so many people in North America—surrounded by unprecedented material abundance—seem so profoundly unhappy?

The Prosperity Puzzle

The question feels almost ungrateful to ask. North Americans live in societies of staggering wealth. We have access to healthcare that would seem miraculous to our grandparents, technology that puts the world’s information in our pockets, food abundance that previous generations couldn’t imagine, and entertainment options that would make royalty of centuries past envious. Indoor plumbing, climate control, reliable electricity, safe drinking water—these luxuries, once reserved for the elite, are now standard expectations.

Yet walk through any city, scroll through social media, talk to neighbors, and you’ll encounter an undercurrent of discontent that seems disproportionate to our material circumstances. Depression and anxiety rates continue climbing. Loneliness has reached epidemic proportions. People describe feeling overwhelmed, inadequate, anxious about the future, and somehow behind despite working harder than ever.

How can this be? Why doesn’t our prosperity translate into proportional contentment?

The Hedonic Treadmill Never Stops

Human beings are remarkably adaptable creatures, but this adaptability cuts both ways. Psychologists call it “hedonic adaptation”—our tendency to return to a relatively stable baseline of happiness regardless of positive or negative changes in our lives.

Get a promotion? The thrill fades within months. Buy your dream car? Within weeks it’s just your car. Move to a bigger house? Soon enough, you’re noticing what it lacks rather than appreciating what it provides. This isn’t moral failing; it’s evolutionary psychology. Our ancestors who constantly sought improvement—better hunting grounds, safer shelter, more resources—were more likely to survive than those who grew complacent.

In modern North America, this means no amount of material gain produces lasting satisfaction. The goalposts perpetually shift. Middle-class comfort that would have seemed like paradise to someone in 1950 feels insufficient today because everyone around us has it too, and we’re constantly exposed to those who have more.

The Tyranny of Comparison

This brings us to perhaps the most toxic element of modern North American life: the comparison trap. Social media has turned what was once occasional exposure to others’ highlights into a constant stream of curated perfection. We don’t just compare ourselves to our neighbors anymore; we compare ourselves to influencers, celebrities, and the idealized versions people present online.

The mathematics of comparison doom most people to dissatisfaction. In any hierarchy, by definition, most people are not at the top. When we measure success by relative position rather than absolute circumstances, the majority must conclude they’re falling short. You might earn a comfortable income, live in a nice home, and enjoy good health—but if your college roommate is now a tech executive, your cousin bought a vacation property, and your social media feed shows people traveling the world, your own life can feel inadequate by comparison.

Humans are wired to evaluate wellbeing relatively, not absolutely. Studies consistently show that earning $100,000 in a community where most earn $50,000 produces more happiness than earning $150,000 where most earn $200,000. It’s not the absolute wealth that matters most for life satisfaction; it’s how you stack up against those around you.

In prosperous North America, nearly everyone can find someone doing better, achieving more, experiencing more. The prosperity that should liberate us instead becomes the backdrop against which our insufficiencies are highlighted.

The Expectation Escalator

Prosperity also raises expectations in ways that paradoxically create discontent. Previous generations might have hoped their children would have steady employment and own a home someday. Today’s expectations are far more expansive: meaningful career fulfillment, work-life balance, homeownership in desirable neighborhoods, regular travel, fitness and wellness, active social lives, creative hobbies, financial security for retirement, and raising well-adjusted children who excel academically and socially.

These aren’t unreasonable desires individually, but collectively they represent an impossible standard. When prosperity makes many things possible, we feel we should achieve them all. Anything less feels like personal failure rather than the normal constraints of finite time, energy, and resources.

Moreover, the prosperity around us creates the illusion that others are meeting these expectations effortlessly. We see the outcomes—the Instagram-perfect family vacation, the friend’s career success, the neighbor’s remodeled kitchen—without seeing the stress, sacrifice, debt, or struggles behind them. This creates a distorted baseline for what normal life should look like.

The Loss of Struggle’s Meaning

Here’s where those content people I know offer insight. Those who came from hardship possess something profound: a reference point. They know what genuine insecurity feels like—not having enough food, living in unsafe conditions, facing discrimination, or experiencing loss. Current challenges feel manageable by comparison. A modest apartment seems luxurious to someone who once lived in a car. A stable job feels like salvation to someone who knew real precarity.

This isn’t to romanticize hardship—trauma is real and can be permanently damaging. But overcoming genuine difficulty can provide lasting perspective and appreciation. When you’ve known real hunger, a simple meal carries meaning. When you’ve experienced homelessness, any shelter feels like abundance.

Most middle-class North Americans lack this frame of reference. We’ve never known true deprivation, so we lack the contrast that makes current comfort feel remarkable. Our struggles—real as they are to us—involve choosing between good options (which job offer? which school for the kids?) rather than survival. Without perspective, prosperity feels like the baseline we deserve rather than the extraordinary fortune it represents.

The Self-Introspection Path

The other content people I know found happiness through inner work rather than external circumstances. They engaged in genuine self-examination: What do I actually value versus what I’m supposed to value? What brings me genuine satisfaction versus what impresses others? What do I need versus what do I want because others have it?

This path is difficult because it requires swimming against powerful cultural currents. North American culture constantly broadcasts that happiness comes from achievement, acquisition, and advancement. Advertising, entertainment, and social norms all reinforce the message that you need more—more success, more possessions, more experiences—to be satisfied.

Stepping off this treadmill requires questioning deeply internalized beliefs: Maybe career advancement isn’t that important to me. Maybe I don’t need a bigger house. Maybe I’m content with simple pleasures. But admitting these things can feel like admitting defeat in a culture that equates ambition with virtue and contentment with complacency.

Those who successfully navigate this process often describe it as liberating—letting go of obligations they never actually chose, releasing themselves from competitions they never wanted to enter. But reaching this point requires sustained reflection that our culture doesn’t encourage or support. We’re too busy, too stimulated, too focused on external metrics to turn inward.

The Community We’ve Lost

Another critical element: traditional sources of meaning and connection have eroded even as material prosperity has grown. Extended family networks are geographically scattered. Religious participation has declined dramatically. Civic organizations and community groups have withered. Labor unions that once provided working-class identity and solidarity have lost membership and influence.

These institutions once provided something prosperity alone cannot: belonging, purpose, identity beyond consumption, and social support during difficult times. They offered narratives about what makes life meaningful beyond material success.

Modern North Americans are often materially comfortable but socially isolated. We live near people we barely know, work in jobs where we’re replaceable, and scroll through feeds that remind us we’re just one of billions. The prosperity is real, but it exists within a social fabric that’s threadbare.

Happiness research consistently shows that strong social connections matter more for life satisfaction than income beyond a modest threshold. Yet North American culture prioritizes individual achievement and consumption over community building. We have more stuff and less togetherness—and we wonder why we’re not happy.

The Meaning Crisis

Perhaps most fundamentally, prosperity without purpose leads to existential emptiness. When you’re struggling to survive, life’s meaning is clear: provide for yourself and your family, establish security, meet basic needs. These goals are concrete and achievable.

Once basic needs are met—and in prosperous North America, they’re met for a large portion of the population—the question becomes: Now what? What am I working toward? What’s the point of all this?

Consumer culture offers an answer: buy things, have experiences, pursue pleasure. But these ultimately feel hollow. The new car loses its luster. The vacation becomes just photos. The pleasure fades. Without deeper meaning, prosperity becomes an elaborate distraction from questions we’re afraid to ask: What matters? What’s worth dedicating my life to? What will I look back on with satisfaction?

Previous generations often found meaning in religion, family legacy, community contribution, or national identity. These narratives have lost power for many North Americans without clear replacements. We’re left materially comfortable but spiritually adrift.

Breaking Free

So why aren’t most people in North America happy despite all this prosperity? Because prosperity alone doesn’t create happiness. It removes certain sources of suffering—and that’s genuinely valuable—but it doesn’t provide purpose, connection, perspective, or inner peace.

The content people I know found happiness not through prosperity but despite it, or sometimes after it. Those who came from hardship maintained perspective—they remember what truly difficult looks like. Those who found contentment through introspection did the hard work of defining their own values rather than accepting society’s script.

For most North Americans, achieving genuine contentment requires:

Cultivating gratitude actively. Our brains naturally focus on problems and comparisons. Consciously appreciating what we have—even writing it down regularly—counteracts this tendency. Not toxic positivity that denies real problems, but genuine recognition of genuine fortune.

Limiting comparison. This means being selective about social media, news consumption, and even conversations that trigger envy. It means consciously reframing “they have more” thoughts with “I have enough” realities.

Defining your own success. What actually matters to you when you strip away others’ expectations? What would make you proud of how you spent your time? These answers differ for everyone but require honest self-examination.

Investing in relationships. Community doesn’t happen accidentally in modern life. It requires intentional effort: showing up, being vulnerable, prioritizing connection over convenience.

Finding meaning beyond consumption. Contributing to something larger than yourself—whether through work, volunteering, creating, or caring for others—provides purpose that material comfort cannot.

Accepting enough. Perhaps the most radical act in a consumer culture: deciding you have enough. Not that you couldn’t use more or don’t deserve more, but that pursuing more no longer serves your actual wellbeing.

The Prosperity Paradox

The great irony is that prosperity creates the space for happiness but doesn’t guarantee it. By removing the urgent struggle for survival, it gives us freedom—but that freedom includes the freedom to squander our lives on empty pursuits, to torture ourselves with comparison, to feel perpetually inadequate despite abundance.

Those few content people I know didn’t find happiness because of prosperity or despite it, but by learning to navigate it wisely. They developed the internal resources to appreciate what they have, the clarity to pursue what matters to them, and the wisdom to stop chasing culturally prescribed goals that don’t actually serve their wellbeing.

The rest of us live in unprecedented abundance, surrounded by people suffering from a poverty of perspective, purpose, and peace. We have everything and feel like it’s not enough. We possess prosperity but haven’t learned to translate it into contentment.

Perhaps the question isn’t why most North Americans aren’t happy despite prosperity, but what it would take for us to develop the wisdom to convert our extraordinary material fortune into genuine life satisfaction. The prosperity is real. The happiness is possible. But the path from one to the other requires inner work that our culture neither teaches nor values.

And maybe that’s the real tragedy: we’ve built societies that excel at creating prosperity but have forgotten—or never learned—how to create conditions for human flourishing. We’ve won the material game but lost sight of what the game was supposed to be for.

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The Great Paradox: Rising Living Standards and Declining Happiness in North America

Over the past fifty years, North America has witnessed remarkable material progress. Life expectancy has increased, technology has transformed daily life, and many objective measures of quality of life have improved substantially. Yet beneath these gains lies a troubling paradox: despite living in unprecedented prosperity, North Americans—particularly younger generations—report declining levels of happiness and life satisfaction.

The Material Progress Story

By nearly every traditional metric, quality of life in North America has improved since 1975. Life expectancy in the United States increased from approximately 73 years in the mid-1970s to 79 years by 2024, representing significant gains in healthcare and medical technology. North America as a region saw life expectancy climb to 77.83 years by 2022, among the highest globally.

The period from the 1930s through 1980 represented what many economists call the “golden age” of the American middle class. After-tax income adjusted for inflation tripled during this time, translating into dramatically higher living standards. Between 1949 and 1969, real median family income nearly doubled. By 1980, the United States boasted the highest standard of living among industrial countries, leading in television ownership, telephone access, school enrollment, and energy consumption.

Material possessions that once signaled wealth became commonplace. By 1969, nearly 80% of households owned at least one car, over 82% had a refrigerator, and 79% owned a television. The homeownership rate reached 69% by 2005, comparable to other developed nations. Americans enjoyed more cars, radios, televisions, and personal computers per capita than virtually any other nation.

The Happiness Divergence

Yet these material gains have not translated into greater happiness. In fact, the opposite has occurred, particularly since 2000.

Research tracking life satisfaction in the United States since 1972 through the General Social Survey reveals a sobering trend: while national average happiness remained relatively constant for decades, recent years have shown concerning declines. Among young adults specifically, the collapse has been dramatic.

Canada’s experience illustrates this divergence starkly. Between 2006 and 2024, average self-reported life satisfaction among Canadians under 35 nosedived. The traditional “U-curve” of happiness—where people are happiest in their twenties and again after retirement—has been replaced by what researchers describe as “a mountain for youth to climb.” Young Canadians must now march all the way to retirement age to reach the happiness levels their parents experienced in their twenties.

The consequences are visible in international rankings. Canada fell from 5th place in the 2015 World Happiness Report to 18th in 2025—its worst showing ever. When considering only Canadians under 30, the country plummets to 58th place out of 134 nations. The United States has similarly declined, dropping from 11th place in 2012 to 24th in 2025.

Between 2021 and 2025, the percentage of Americans describing themselves as happy fell from 76% to 69%. In Canada, the drop was even steeper: from 80% to 67%. Notably, two-thirds of respondents in both countries cited their financial situation as the primary source of unhappiness—despite these nations being among the world’s wealthiest.

The Inequality Factor

The key to understanding this paradox lies not in aggregate measures of prosperity, but in how gains have been distributed. The period since 1975 marks a sharp departure from the broadly shared prosperity of the postwar era.

From 1947 to 1974, real incomes grew at roughly the same rate across all income levels. Those at the bottom, middle, and top of the distribution all saw their incomes rise together with overall economic growth. This was the era that built North America’s legendary middle class.

Around 1975, however, this pattern fractured. Since then, income and wealth have concentrated dramatically at the very top. After-tax income inequality increased more than 25% between 1975 and 2022, and by as much as 50% when comparing the top and bottom 10% of earners.

The statistics are stark: Between 1979 and 2021, the average income of the richest 0.01% of households—roughly 12,000 families—grew nearly 27 times faster than the income of the bottom 20% of earners. The top 1% captured an increasingly larger share of all income, rising from 9% in 1975 to 22% in 2018. Meanwhile, the bottom 90% saw their share of total income fall from 67% to 50%.

Wealth inequality grew even more dramatically. By 2016, the richest 5% of American families had 248 times the wealth of families in the second quintile—more than double the 114-to-1 ratio that existed in 1989. Between 1963 and 2022, the ratio of wealth between the richest families and those in the middle increased from 36-to-1 to 71-to-1.

This redistribution amounts to what some economists estimate as a $50 trillion upward transfer of wealth from working Americans to those at the very top over the past 45 years—roughly $297,000 per household that might otherwise have gone to the middle and lower classes.

The Young Bear the Burden

Young adults have been hit hardest by these trends. The economic landscape they face differs fundamentally from what their parents experienced.

Housing affordability has become a defining crisis for younger generations. The wealth-building power of homeownership—historically the primary vehicle for middle-class asset accumulation—has become increasingly out of reach. Where previous generations could reasonably expect to buy a home and build equity in their twenties and thirties, today’s young adults face soaring property prices relative to their incomes.

Career prospects have similarly transformed. Despite higher levels of formal education than any previous generation, young adults face more precarious employment, stagnant wages relative to costs, and diminished expectations of upward mobility. The promise that “working hard allows you to move up the social ladder”—a cornerstone of the American and Canadian Dream—rings hollow for many.

A 2023 study found young Canadians express less satisfaction with democracy than previous generations at the same age, alongside higher distrust of institutions and lower patriotism. In a striking January 2025 poll, four in ten Canadian respondents aged 18-34 said they would vote to join the United States if guaranteed citizenship and currency conversion—a reflection of deep dissatisfaction with their economic prospects.

Young people also report feeling less freedom to make life choices, lower satisfaction with living conditions, less confidence in government, higher perceptions of corruption, and increased loneliness compared to older generations. The social support networks that buffer against life’s difficulties appear to be fraying.

The Compression of Unhappiness

Interestingly, research on “happy life expectancy”—which combines longevity with reported happiness—shows some encouraging trends. Studies found that between 1970 and 2000, Americans were not only living longer but spending a greater proportion of their lives reporting happiness rather than unhappiness. This “compression of unhappiness” suggested that as lifespans extended, the additional years were disproportionately happy ones.

However, this research covers only through 2000 and predates the sharp declines in young adult happiness documented in recent years. The divergence between objective health improvements and subjective wellbeing appears to have widened in the 21st century.

Beyond Material Measures

The North American experience over the past 50 years demonstrates that traditional economic indicators tell only part of the story. Rising GDP, increasing life expectancy, and expanding access to consumer goods do not automatically translate into greater life satisfaction when gains are distributed unequally.

Research consistently shows that beyond a certain threshold of material security, relative economic position matters more than absolute wealth for happiness. When economic growth lifts all boats together—as during 1947-1974—satisfaction rises across society. When growth concentrates at the top while others stagnate or fall behind—as since 1975—aggregate measures of prosperity mask widespread discontent.

The correlation between quality of life and happiness is thus not straightforward. It depends critically on:

• Relative rather than absolute prosperity: People evaluate their wellbeing partly by comparing themselves to others in their society
• Perceived fairness: When economic systems are seen as rigged or offering unequal opportunities, satisfaction declines even amid overall prosperity
• Social cohesion: Strong community bonds, family support, and social trust contribute to happiness independent of material wealth
• Future expectations: Optimism about prospects matters as much as current circumstances; declining faith in upward mobility erodes satisfaction
• Basic security: Anxiety about affording housing, healthcare, or retirement undermines happiness despite high aggregate wealth

The Path Forward

The past half-century in North America presents a cautionary tale about measuring societal success. While material progress has been real and substantial, the fruits of that progress have been distributed in ways that leave many—especially younger generations—feeling left behind, anxious, and unhappy despite living in history’s wealthiest societies.

Reversing these trends would require addressing the structural drivers of inequality: stagnant wages for most workers while executive compensation soars; declining union membership and worker bargaining power; tax policies that favor investment income over wages; housing markets that price out young buyers; and the rising costs of healthcare and education.

But it would also require attention to less tangible factors: rebuilding social trust and institutions, fostering genuine community connections, ensuring democratic responsiveness, and restoring faith that hard work leads to genuine opportunity.

The goal cannot be simply to return to some idealized past, but rather to forge a new social compact that combines continued technological and medical progress with the kind of broadly shared prosperity that characterized the postwar era—extended now to include the genuine equality across gender, race, and identity that previous generations failed to achieve.

Until then, North America faces the uncomfortable reality that for many of its residents, particularly its youth, rising living standards measured objectively have translated not into greater contentment, but into growing frustration with a system that seems to promise much but deliver primarily to those already at the top. The great challenge of our time is recognizing that a truly high quality of life requires not just material abundance, but shared prosperity, genuine opportunity, and the social bonds that make life meaningful beyond mere consumption.