By most indicators, mankind has reached a tipping point. Despair and depression have become far too prevalent worldwide. In Europe, a study revealed that, “Nearly 40percentof Europeansare mentally ill.” [49]
Drug and alcohol abuse are on the rise and the divorce rate throughout the Western world is skyrocketing. The data clearly show that we are becoming hopeless, insecure, and pessimistic, even about the prospect of our children having a better life than our own [50]. This trend has existed for some years now, even in more economically optimistic times, but the current crisis is accelerating and intensifying the trend toward pessimism.
So what can make us happy? Clearly, every person needs to have sufficient income for dignified sustenance, allowing for the necessities of life to be met, such as food, clothing, housing, healthcare, and education. But beyond that, as was demonstrated above, a rise in well-being is possible only by improving human relations, not by increasing personal wealth. We need to shift from an attitude of alienation to one of consideration and of mutual guarantee, where all are guarantors of each other’s well-being.
With a world turned global and closely integrated, we must adjust our connections accordingly. We must come to feel that social and economic systems and human interactions are based on care, consideration, and mutual guarantee. When people feel confident that they will not be exploited or used, they lower their walls of defense against others. In other words, we need mutual guarantee in order to be happy, and mutual guarantee cannot be bought with money.
The significance of the studies presented above and of others similar to them is that they prove that wealth is not a precondition for happiness. Rather, consideration, care, mutual guarantee, and financial security are better means for obtaining happiness than merely being rich. If we can create an environment that instills values of solidarity, care for others, and mutual responsibility, we will be able to increase the personal level of happiness of every person in society. This is why mutual guarantee is so important.
We are not born equal—some are born smarter, some stronger, some wealthier, and some with more robust health. As long as society continues to tell us that we must compete with others, exceed them in money and resources, we will not achieve social equality, and in a global-integral world, social equality and mutual guarantee are preconditions for personal happiness. To resolve the mental, emotional, economic, and financial problems of our world, we must create a society based on a network of mutual guarantee, in which each person partakes in the activities of society and receives from it what he or she needs for reasonable sustenance. When we create such a society, it will allow for genuine equality, and the sense of injustice and depravity that prevail in today’s social climate will be all but gone.
The key to the solution lies in cultivating values of generosity, consideration, and mutual care to replace the values of materialism and competitiveness. This will enhance feelings of happiness, as well. We will discover that realizing our full potential is possible only in a society that conducts itself by the principle of mutual guarantee. The satisfaction, confidence, and security we will derive from living in a harmonious society will bring us the happiness we crave and have been unable to achieve through monetary means.