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Pinpointing Why So Many of Us Claim to Be “Not Very Happy”
The Happiness Gap
For over fifty years, a random-sample poll has asked Americans the simple question, “Are you happy?” Since the poll’s inception in 1972, the number of people who reported being “very happy” exceeded those who reported being “not very happy” by an average of twenty points every year.1 Until the pandemic.
In 2020, for the first time in American history, those who were “not very happy” exceeded those who were “very happy.” That happiness gap has slightly closed since then, but not in a meaningful way.
Today, Americans are measurably much less happy than ever before.
What was it about the pandemic that hit our happiness so very hard? Why, for the last six years, has happiness felt so out of reach?
Admittedly, a careful reader or researcher could ask and answer that question in a hundred different ways. But two data points deserve a second look: happiness levels fell the furthest for America’s most educated and America’s most wealthy. The assumption for most of us is that if we have an education, we can get a good job and make good money. Education and income are strong insulators from suffering. So, what gives?
Why Is It So Hard to Be Happy?
Jen Oshman
In a world obsessed with happiness, obtaining it seems more elusive than ever. This booklet by Jen Oshman explores the history, sociology, and data of happiness, proposing a lasting solution through the person of Jesus Christ.
Economists blame the sudden drop in happiness in America’s elite on the aspiration gap—the distance between expectation and reality. People who are educated and make a good income are expected to be happier than they actually are, starting with the pandemic. We who go to college and have successful careers expect those careers to provide a measure of satisfaction. We who earn a good income or inherit wealth from the generation before us expect money to indeed buy happiness. We’re confident that a home, cars, a retirement account, and vacations will make us happy.
But when a global crisis hit, education and wealth simply did not deliver.
Weak Happiness vs. Strong Happiness
It goes without saying that the pandemic upset every status quo imaginable. Nothing in our lives was left untouched, including education, work, and wealth. Americans who expected these things to make them happy woke up one day in March 2020 to the reality that they could not. While they may insulate us from suffering, they are no guarantee against it.
Herein lies the fundamental reason happiness feels out of reach: We tend to aim for the wrong kind of happiness. Most Americans aim for happiness, which, unbeknownst to them, can be shaken or taken. Wealthy Westerners think they will find happiness in the following six places:
- Pleasurable experiences
- Individual autonomy
- Personal achievement
- Consumeristic goods
- Self-improvement
- Relationships
All of the above are temporary or dependent on circumstances that come and go. Pleasure doesn’t last. No one is truly autonomous. The excitement of a new personal achievement wears off. Stuff breaks. There are always more ways to improve oneself. No relationship is immune to fractures or death. Happiness feels out of reach because when we finally grab hold of one of the above, it doesn’t satisfy us the way we thought it would. We’re left wanting and asking, Really? Is this it?
The pandemic unveiled our aspiration gap. In 2020, we expected to be happier than we were, and that hasn’t really changed. Our attempts at happiness through education and income weren’t as sturdy as we thought they were. The happiness we aimed for turned out to be flimsy.
The Counterintuitive Truth About Real Happiness
Genuine happiness cannot be aimed for; it’s a by-product of something else. Here’s how Jesus puts it: “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:25). When we seek to protect our own lives or secure our own happiness, we lose them. But when we instead seek Jesus, we find true life—we receive the byproduct of true happiness.
Jesus, who is our Creator, says he came that we might have an abundant life in him (John 10:10). Jesus says he desires that “my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). He wants you and me and all people to have abundant, joy-filled, happy lives. But he says we won’t get that by seeking it in and of itself. Happiness comes through a life lived for Jesus and with Jesus.
It’s worth repeating: Jesus is our Creator. We are made in his image—imago Dei (Gen. 1:26–27). It stands to reason then that, as his image bearers, we can only be made happy by what makes Jesus happy. He calls us to follow him, to take after him, to live as he did. And this means sacrifice. Jesus came to serve, not to be served (Matt. 20:28).
The counterintuitive truth about happiness is that it’s a byproduct of laying ourselves down. When we serve, when we sacrifice, when we surrender, that’s when we find true happiness. When we walk in the footsteps of our Savior, who gave himself up for us, we find an abundant, joy-filled life—a happiness that cannot be shaken or taken by a pandemic or any other circumstance.
Why does happiness feel so out of reach? Because we’re looking for it in the wrong places.
Learning to be Happy in All Circumstances
The apostle Paul offers us a case study in how to be happy, even in the face of great suffering. Before surrendering to faith in Jesus, Paul was tremendously successful from a worldly perspective. He told the Philippians, “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more” (Phil. 3:4). As a Pharisee, Paul had arrived at the top of the ladder spiritually and in his vocation. He received accolades from his community and was profoundly respected. But at the peak of Paul’s career as a Pharisee, Jesus, in his mercy, struck Paul blind, miraculously saving Paul from himself (Acts 9:1–19), his heinous sins, and the harm he eagerly committed against Christians.
It was when Paul began following Jesus and sacrificing for the cause of Christ that he discovered “the secret of being content in any and every situation” (Phil. 4:12 NIV). After becoming a Christian, Paul was whipped five different times, was beaten three times, stoned once, and shipwrecked on three occasions. He suffered while adrift at sea and was in danger from rivers, robbers, Jews, Gentiles, the city, the wilderness, the sea, false brothers, toil, hardship, sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, cold, and exposure (2 Cor. 11:24–27). Paul doesn’t minimize his suffering. He’s clear that his life following Jesus was perilous.
But Paul concludes, “. . . in whatever situation I am, to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:11–13)
Paul says the secret to being happy in all circumstances is knowing Jesus, following Jesus, taking after Jesus. And Jesus says we who lose our loves for his sake will find our lives—and they will be abundant lives! Education and wealth are two of society’s highest values. They are two of the primary places we turn for security, satisfaction, and happiness. And yet those with the most of these found the least happiness.
Why does happiness feel so out of reach? Because we’re looking for it in the wrong places. Let’s seek first Jesus’s kingdom. He’s our Maker and Savior and stands ready to offer us true and eternal happiness in him, which cannot be shaken or taken. He will make us very happy indeed.
Notes:
- All data in this article come from: Nick Lichtenberg, "America Got Rich and Got Sad. A Top Economist Says 2020 Broke Something That Hasn't Healed," updated May 3, 2026. (https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/america-got-rich-got-sad-110000992.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMwVVTHJXlCFavp1HSUFbg10NmG1--9-xxG5xzZU5xgJV78TpwChBgkTHfI8ITkB-jWo9X1tTt4zxCk-4qBusnMep50r5SKaDhPeqXdf79PCfYbST-kFH89sRrzR_odrYRYb0GFMPNB2GTYVC32XmYrcMXdArGtb4d2qjfHQkvSM)
Jen Oshman is the author of Why Is It So Hard to Be Happy?.
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