There Is Not Enough Happiness for Everyone

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

There was a man who lived on the seventeenth floor of a building overlooking the city.

Every evening, before going to bed, he stood by the window for a few minutes and looked at the illuminated apartments across the avenue.

Some windows were small.

Some were enormous.

Behind one of them, he could see a chandelier hanging above a dining table large enough for twelve people. Behind another, a television covered almost an entire wall. On the top floor of the tallest building, there was a swimming pool suspended above the city like a piece of blue glass.

The man had a comfortable apartment.

Two bedrooms.

A good car.

A stable job.

A refrigerator full of food.

But every night, looking through that window, he discovered something he did not have.

And every morning, he went back to work to get it.

For years, this seemed perfectly reasonable.

After all, this is what we are taught to do.

We climb.

We accumulate.

We improve.

We replace.

A larger house replaces the smaller one. A newer car replaces the old one. A better neighborhood replaces the ordinary one. Business class replaces economy. The private room replaces the shared room. The table near the window replaces the table near the kitchen.

And somewhere along the way, we begin to call this movement happiness.

There is only one problem.

There may not be enough of that kind of happiness for everyone.

This sounds cruel because it is cruel.

The world contains a finite number of beachfront houses.

A finite number of penthouses.

A finite number of first-class seats.

A finite number of private islands, corner offices, exclusive clubs, rare paintings, front-row tables and rooms with the perfect view.

There can only be one person in first place.

Only one name at the top of a list.

Only a limited number of people can live above everyone else.

And perhaps this is the great secret hidden inside material happiness:

it depends on scarcity.

A luxury ceases to be a luxury when everyone has it.

An exclusive place ceases to be exclusive when everyone enters.

A symbol of status loses much of its power when it no longer separates one person from another.

If everyone could live on the top floor, there would be no top floor.

So we created a strange civilization.

Billions of people are encouraged to climb a mountain whose summit cannot hold billions of people.

We tell them to work harder.

Wake earlier.

Sleep less.

Focus.

Persist.

Believe.

And, occasionally, someone reaches the top.

We photograph that person.

Interview them.

Write books about them.

Turn their life into evidence that the mountain is fair.

Then millions begin climbing again.

The man on the seventeenth floor believed this too.

Until one Tuesday evening, when the electricity went out.

The entire avenue disappeared into darkness.

The chandelier vanished.

The enormous television vanished.

The suspended swimming pool vanished.

For the first time in years, the man could not see what he lacked.

He lit a candle.

A few minutes later, someone knocked on his door.

It was his daughter.

She lived across town and had been nearby when the blackout began. Her phone battery was almost dead, the elevators were not working, and she had climbed seventeen floors using the emergency stairs.

She was exhausted.

He laughed at her.

She laughed too.

They sat on the kitchen floor because the apartment was too warm.

There was nothing impressive about that evening.

They ate bread with cheese.

They drank water.

They talked.

At some point, she reminded him of a trip they had taken when she was a child. He remembered the cheap hotel. She remembered the rain. He remembered the broken car. She remembered how they had laughed for hours waiting for help.

They discovered that they had kept completely different versions of the same life.

Three hours later, the electricity returned.

The refrigerator hummed.

The television woke.

The city reappeared.

Thousands of illuminated windows came back at once, each displaying something that someone else did not have.

The man stood up and walked toward the glass.

Across the avenue, the chandelier was shining again.

Above it, the blue swimming pool floated over the city.

Everything was exactly where it had been.

But something had changed.

His daughter was still sitting on the kitchen floor.

And for the first time, he understood that perhaps the world really does contain a limited amount of material happiness.

There are not enough mansions for everyone.

Not enough yachts.

Not enough penthouses.

Not enough places at the summit.

A world built on possession must always produce exclusion, because many of the things we desire derive their value precisely from the fact that others cannot have them.

But perhaps we made a terrible mistake when we assumed that this was the only kind of happiness available.

Because there was no limit to the laughter in that kitchen.

No one had to lose a memory for them to remember one.

No one had to become poorer for them to share three hours.

No stranger had to be pushed down so that a father and daughter could sit together on the floor.

Nothing had to be conquered.

Nothing had to be displayed.

Nothing had to be taken from anyone.

The next evening, the man returned to the window.

The city was still there.

Beautiful.

Unequal.

Seductive.

He still wanted things.

He was still human.

But he no longer confused every desire with a destination.

He looked at the highest building in the distance and thought about all the people trying to reach the top.

Then he looked behind him.

At the ordinary kitchen.

At the two glasses still drying beside the sink.

And he finally understood:

Material happiness is scarce because it must be acquired.

Real happiness may be infinite because it can be shared.