Voluntary simplicity: Making more out of less 189Predicting content
Read only the irst paragraph of the reading text, then make three predictions about the
content of the entire text.
Reading text
1 In 1988, American vocalist Bobby McFerrin released “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Accompa-
nied by an entertaining video featuring comic actors Robin Williams and Bill Irwin, McFerrin’s
a cappella song had a catchy tune, but it was the simple, upbeat message that lited it to No. 1 on
the Billboard Hot 100. As stated in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, life, lib-
erty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights. Happiness motivates us; without it, our
lives would be empty and meaningless.
2 Of course, what makes a person happy difers greatly from individual to individual. For
some it’s money, fame, or power; for others, it’s family, relationships, work, adventure, creativity,
or peace of mind. In its short refrain, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” ofers a straightforward formula
for happiness—one that most people would agree with—but not worrying and being happy aren’t
always so easy. Or is it possible that by simplifying our lives, by reducing the clutter that worries
and burdens us, we can ind true happiness?
3 he majority of people have always lived simply, and most of humanity still struggles on a
daily basis to eke out a meager existence under dire circumstances. Only in auent industrialized
countries do people have the luxury of more goods and services than they need to survive. On the
basis of material wealth, North Americans and Europeans should be the happiest people on earth,
but according to the 2012 Happy Planet Index (HPI), they are not.
4 Introduced in 2006 by the New Economics Foundation as a challenge to the Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) and the Human Development Index (HDI) as measures of a country’s well-being,
the Happy Planet Index assesses happiness in terms of life expectancy, experienced well-being,
and the country’s ecological footprint. he results are astounding. he top ive ranking coun-
tries are Costa Rica, Vietnam, Colombia, Belize, and El Salvador, in that order; these poor coun-
tries also have a minimal ecological footprint between 1.4 and 2.4. he least happy of the 161
countries listed are Mali, the Central African Republic, Qatar, Chad, and Botswana. Except for
oil-rich Qatar with an ecological footprint of 11.7, these countries are poor and have an ecological
footprint between 1.4 and 2.8. Wealthy countries show the following results:
Country Rank Ecological footprint
Switzerland 34 5.0
United Kingdom 41 4.7
Japan 45 4.2
Germany 46 4.6
Canada 64 6.4
Australia 76 6.7
United States 105 17.2
5 Not only are Americans, Canadians, Britons, Germans, Australians, the Swiss, and the Japa-
nese less happy than their counterparts in Central and Latin American countries, but—ironi-
cally—in the last few decades, some people, particularly in North America, have been turning
away from consumerism and embracing a simpler, more natural lifestyle. During the counter-