By
JOHN SCHERBER
HAPPINESS IS A FRESH TORTILLA.
It turns out
that México, in terms of how happy its residents are, is the 14th
best place in the world to live. Lack of security and poverty are problems that
contribute to this dismal showing out of 158 countries surveyed. Switzerland is
the easy favorite, and Togo came in last. Maybe it should be spelled To Go,
anywhere, please, and me first. Check me for Ebola on the way out. In Latin
America, only Costa Rica came in better than México, at number 12. But then
Costa Rica is so happy it doesn’t even have an army. Maybe that’s why it’s so happy. I haven’t heard of
any wars it’s started lately. Being unarmed is definitely a deterrent.
Oh, and how
about the U.S., for whom México is about the worst place to live on earth? Perhaps
that’s about the risk of sunburn in January. Well, the U.S. came in slightly
behind México at number 15. Maybe if the numbers had been filtered through the
Labor Department’s job growth or inflation report division, they could have come
in ahead of their southern neighbor. This all comes from a United Nations
report, where Iran and China didn’t get to meddle with the numbers, either.
I suspect that
when the UN conducted these interviews, expats in México were excluded. They
would’ve displayed an unconscious bias; the street crews with clipboards might
have avoided people with grins on their faces, and with some justification.
They would not, for example, walk up to someone on the street that had other
than a neutral or puzzled look. You would want a person grappling with heavy
issues, like what to do with the money left over from their social security
payment this month. How to meet that $265 annual property tax bill on their
3800 square foot house, or the $28 car license fee this year. The burden of those
$100 a month utility bills that cover gas, electric, water, sewer, telephone, cable
TV, Internet. Costs like that will simply run you into the garden, where for
$20 every ten weeks your gardener comes for four hours and tends, prunes, and
trims all your local plants.
Yes, it is a
tough place. Heroin and cocaine flow through the border towns like a river on
its way to American consumers. In gracious return, they call this country the
cesspool of the continent. I guess that’s true––we are half the narcotics
trade, right? It must be all our fault.
Of course this
place could be a lot better. It is not paradise, and I have written about the
reasons why in other posts. Canada came in fifth in this worldwide survey, so I
should probably start asking them why their country is so much better. That’s
actually easy to do, since I am surrounded by Canadians whenever I step out
into the street here in San Miguel. They respond that their press is not as
negative about México, and I can believe that, since after all, they have quite
prudently never shared a border. Had the Canadians gotten acquisitive like the
Americans did, they would’ve ended up with chunks of North Dakota, which I
think might have discouraged them from any further such ambitions. Most of their
neighbors don’t ask them why they’re not scared to come down to México for six
months a year, nor are they surprised when they return in one piece.
I guess it’s
all where your bias lies.
My bias, and I
don’t hesitate to disclose it, has been formed over the last eight years that
I’ve lived in San Miguel, in the state of Guanajuato, México. Before that I
lived in Edina, Minnesota, an upscale first tier suburb of Minneapolis, and
before that for twenty-five years in St. Paul. Although I find some things to
recall fondly about each place, I don’t look back, I look forward.
I look forward
to ending the summer not with winter but with a cooling off period where
afternoons are typically around 70º. That’s part of why people are happy here.
I think a larger reason is about the values. We are not flat out consumers in
México. The reason is that we lack two elements to pull that off: most people don’t
have the money here to equate happiness with ownership; and second, we are not
faced with the constant barrage of advertising that makes such an idea
convincing through repetition. Happiness is closer to the idea that our
eighty-dollar pickup might still be running next year, or that we’ll be getting
together with a group of friends tonight.
I have written in other places that living in
México changes expats by degrees, not all at once. You wake up three or four
years after your arrival and realize you just don’t give a damn about having all
that stuff. You’re not running everywhere. I couldn’t tell you what the latest
iPhone is. When people ask me what I have, I tell them it’s a rotary model with
the dial on the front. It’s made entirely of wood, and on the back it’s got a
flap to hold a small spiral notebook and a stub of a pencil for texting.
The truth is,
it’s even worse than that. I don’t even have a cell phone. I have never had a cell phone. I just don’t
need to be in touch in that way. When people say I’m out of touch, I’m
flattered.
I guess the
bottom line is partly about values. We can be happier if our needs are less. An
old advertising line is, Why be satisfied with any less? The answer is that if
less is satisfying, why should we knock ourselves out getting any more just to
make a profit for some giant multinational?
It turns out
that happiness has very little to do with how much stuff you have. It’s much
more about what you’re doing with your life.
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