Opptimistic Case

I'm Nic Marks and I am optimistic about our future. I'm a happiness researcher. I believe that happy people are more productive. I think quality of life is measurable, and that true contentment comes not from the accumulation of material wealth but from our connections with others, engagement with the world, and a sense of autonomy. I have a positive outlook about the future and I have a dream that it won't be a nightmare. I believe that with changing our point of view about our values and thoughts, our world will be a better place. I'm optimistic about upcoming years because I think that currently most of us are focusing on values that aren't incredibly important. I think when we start to know and understand what actually matters to us; the world will have a lot of potential to be a better place. We have to stop measuring our nation's success by its productivity and instead by the happiness and well- being of its people. Happiness, health and love are what should actually matter to us. What is life without being happy, healthy and not being loved? The world is being ignorant by thinking that money is everything. Nowadays the society we live in is greedy. We think that money and those we have the best brands of everything is going to find happiness. For example by buying a BMW, mostly people buy it because it's a "BMW". Most people aren't interested by anything else about the car. Were so focused on the things that don't matter to us, were not realizing that by buying these "cool" cars were actually killing our environment. Sports cars like the BMW are bought to impressive people and by doing so we think were going to find happiness. Cars like the BMW use the worst gasoline out in the market; therefore we are polluting the planet we live on just for the fact that we think it's going to make us pleased. I assume that we have potential to change our planets future by focusing on what really matter to us. For example if you really want a car like a BMW, why don't you buy a Fisker Karma car? It looks a lot like a BMW, around the same price but it's environmentally friendly. Our society is very ignorant and we like to spend money on expensive stuff and eventually this stuff ruins our environment. A system I created was the Happy Planet Index; it ranks the happiest countries in the world. Costa Rica is ranked highest for the second year in a row, with several other developing nations following its lead. Surprisingly, one of the highest-ranked countries in the HPI, Nicaragua, also ranks as the second-poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, according to the U.S. Department of State. How could countries that are not developed and don't have luxury be so happy? Whereas countries like United States and Canada that have everything aren't happy? People in Costa Rica have a life expectancy of 78 years old. This is longer then the USA. They only use a quarter of