Introduction | A Question with No Simple Answer
A few years ago, after a class, a student approached his professor and asked:
“I have everything. My family is good, my financial situation isn’t bad, I’ve almost finished my studies. But honestly… I don’t enjoy life. It’s like life has lost its flavor. I have no worries, no particular problem, but it feels like something is missing. I don’t know why.”
That day, the professor had nothing to say. He knew there was no simple answer to this question. One could say, “You should be grateful,” or “Look at others who have less,” or “Your mind is too busy, take some time to be alone.” Many people say these things, and perhaps they are even true, but they don’t untie the knot.
That student wasn’t looking for simple advice. He was talking about an experience for which he couldn’t find a name.
A few days later, another student asked the same question. In a different way, with a different example. A month later, at a friendly gathering, one of the guests—a company director who was successful by any measure—came up to the professor and said: “Honestly, nothing is worth it anymore.”
That was when he realized this wasn’t just a personal question. It was a human problem. Something that has befallen modern humans. Something we sometimes call the “feeling of emptiness,” sometimes “anhedonia,” sometimes “existential burnout.” Different names for a single challenge.
The Paradox of Progress | The Best Era in History, Yet the Most Dissatisfied Humans
Let’s think together for a moment. Modern humans, materially speaking, live in the best era in history.
Life expectancy has nearly doubled in the last hundred years. Absolute poverty has decreased globally. Diseases that were deadly a hundred years ago are now treated with a single injection or pill. With a small phone, we can talk to someone on the other side of the planet. With one click, we have access to all human knowledge.
From any angle you look, life today is better than in any era of history. Not relatively better, absolutely better.
But right in the heart of these dazzling advances, something strange is happening.
The World Health Organization says depression is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. The number of people who feel lonely is increasing in societies that have never had so many means of communication. In many wealthy countries, the consumption of antidepressants has multiplied several times over. And more interestingly, research shows that despite increased income, people’s life satisfaction has either remained stable or decreased.
What does this mean? It means something is off. We have miscalculated something.
We thought that if money increased, we would be happier. If amenities increased, pleasure would increase. If we had health and longevity, satisfaction would increase. But apparently, it’s not that simple.
Material progress and life satisfaction don’t align as we thought they would. This contradiction is precisely where a serious problem is born.
Scientific Findings | When Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness
This paradox is not just a personal feeling; it’s a documented scientific finding.
In 1974, Richard Easterlin, an American economist, published research that later became known as the “Easterlin Paradox.” He showed that within a society, wealthier individuals are usually happier than poorer ones. But when the whole society becomes wealthier, the general level of happiness does not increase proportionally.
Subsequent research, including studies by Nobel laureate economist Daniel Kahneman, confirmed this finding. In a large-scale study in 2010, Kahneman and colleagues showed that beyond a certain income level, increased income has little effect on daily happiness.
World Health Organization studies also show that depression will become the leading cause of disease burden worldwide by 2030. This is while global per capita income has increased unprecedentedly during the same period.
Analysis | Why Does This Happen?
There are three main scientific explanations for this paradox:
- Hedonic Adaptation:** Our brains quickly adapt to any success. A new house, a new car, a new salary—after a few months, they all become “normal” and lose their initial pleasure. We are caught in an endless cycle of “wanting, achieving, and wanting again.”
- Social Comparison:** Humans are comparative creatures. We compare ourselves with others. Social media has taken this comparison to an unprecedented level. We compare our real lives with “the best images of others’ lives” and we always lose.
- Meaning Crisis:** Progress has answered the “how” questions. How to treat disease? How to communicate? But the “why” question remains. Why do we live? Why should we be good? Modern humans have never been so helpless in answering the “why” questions.
These three factors together explain why modern humans, despite all amenities, feel an existential void.
Conclusion | What Is the Problem?
So far, we can draw a few tentative conclusions:
We live in a strange era; an era of “having everything and having nothing.” Materially, we are in the best conditions in human history, but emotionally and existentially, we are in one of the most critical periods.
This paradox is a global issue and is not specific to any country or culture. But the Iranian experience of it has its own particular shape and color.
Contemporary humanities have done a great job: they have turned the issue from a general claim into a precise scientific problem, identified indicators and variables, and provided useful statistical data. But it is still far from a final answer.
The main problem is this: we don’t know exactly what we want from happiness. As long as the meaning of happiness is unclear, comparing past and present is more like comparing two maps with two different destinations.
Perhaps modern humans need, more than anything, to “pause.” Not in the sense of stagnation, but in the sense of “deliberation.” A pause that allows us to step back from the relentless speed of life and ask: “Is this the life I want? Is this the road that leads somewhere valuable to me?”
Perhaps happiness is not a “destination” to reach. Perhaps happiness is a “path.” A path where, every now and then, we stop and smell the flowers by the roadside.
And perhaps the greatest mistake of modern humans has been to care so much about the speed of progress that they forgot to ask themselves: “Where are we going, and why?”
References
- Easterlin, R. (1974). “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot?” In *Nations and Households in Economic Growth*. Translated by M. R. Esmaili. University of Tehran Press. pp. 89-125.
- Kahneman, D. (2011). *Thinking, Fast and Slow*. Translated by F. Rezaei. Farhang Nashr-e No. pp. 445-470.
- Diener, E. (2009). *Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth*. Translated by M. Qarachdaghi. Roshd Publications. pp. 50-80.
- Frankl, V. (1946). *Man’s Search for Meaning*. Translated by N. Salehi. University of Tehran Press. pp. 60-85.
- Layard, R. (2005). *Happiness: Lessons from a New Science*. Translated by M. Qarachdaghi. Roshd Publications. pp. 40-70.
- World Health Organization. (2023). *Depression and Other Common Mental Disorders: Global Health Estimates*. Translated by M. R. Mohammadi. SAMT Publications. pp. 25-50.
- Nussbaum, M. (2011). *Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach*. Translated by H. Fathi. Farhang Nashr-e No. pp. 40-60.
- Sen, A. (1999). *Development as Freedom*. Translated by V. Mahmoudi. University of Tehran Press. pp. 60-80.
