Exactly! As what the cartoon above mentioned, “Money can’t buy happiness”. Most of the time, those wealthy white collar workers are not contented with their lives. Despite their success, they still feel empty. Surprisingly, some even commit suicide.

Measuring GDP does not give statisticians or political scientists an adequate representation of the development and security of a peasant farmer living off his land. It also does not represent the “success” of a woman who produces pottery and barters her products to support her family.

There are many societies in which individuals and their communities “own” nothing but have everything. Material items and formal currency are irrelevant in their daily lives as are “per capita income” and GDP.

The creation of the UNHD indicators such as “access to safe drinking water” and “literacy rates” give researchers a much better impression of the living standards of select nations. However I still think that they are missing the big picture. While I understand that there is a need to gauge development (for purposes of aid distribution and intervention) it seems that the current criteria for “success” is biased toward Western standards and thus doesn’t present us with the proper solutions.

Basically, because of our skewed perception of happiness and security, the whole world must follow in our material footsteps. I think the at the end of the day, the peasant farmer in Southeast Asia may be much happier than the thousands of white collar workers in the United States that are the definition of “success”