In Part One, I discussed the rise of the advertising industry and how it has effected our personal "need-o- meters" - that little voice in our heads that say: "I would be happy if only I had _________." How you, personally, fill in that blank space is irrelevant. But it is something; typically the "it" is a material possession. We are led to believe by the ubiquitous media bombardment that happiness or love or self-esteem (or whatever we might sense we are lacking) is just one purchase away. We also talked about one longitudinal study that, after classifying 4 year old children into "grabbers" (poor delayed gratification) or "waiters" (good delayed gratification), followed them into young adulthood. Results of the study showed that the "waiters" - those who, early in life, showed an ability to postpone immediate pleasure for greater future reward - tended to be smarter, happier and more satisfied later in life. Unfortunately, I suspect, the ability to identify "waiters" and "grabbers" among 21^st century children - not to mention adults - is becoming more and more difficult.

America, today, is quite simply the richest and most affluent culture the world has ever seen. In "Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess" economist Robert Frank reports that spending on luxury goods in the late-1990s was growing four times as fast as overall spending. Thousand-dollar-a-night suites at the Palm Beach Four Seasons Hotel were booked months ahead as were $5000-a-night suites in Aspen. The number of 100-foot yachts doubled to 5,000 compared to just a decade ago. During the last four decades, the average American’s buying power more than doubled. The 1957 per-person after tax income (inflated to 1995 dollars) was $8500; by 2002, it was $23,000. The question is: "Are we any happier?"

The answer should be obvious to anyone. But, it’s probably not the answer you might have guessed. We are not one whit happier and, though statistical analysis might belies its significance, we’re probably a little more miserable. For instance, in 1957, one large survey reported that 35% of Americans considered themselves "happy." In 2002, 30 percent agreed that they were "happy." (These data are from the monumental "Historical Statistics of the United States," by the way.) Another glimpse at just how "happy" we might be in our new-found wealth are these all-too-well-known facts: the divorce rate has more than doubled (now about 50 percent for all marriages; by the way, it’s 67 percent for second-marriages and 74 percent for third), teen suicide has more than doubled (one in five teens have seriously considered suicide) and depression - requiring medical intervention - is epidemic. And these same statements apply to most other affluent societies in Europe as well as Australia and Japan.

So, one must ask, what the heck is going on? What is going on and is becoming increasingly evident to the general public is something that the cloistered research psychiatrists have been writing about for years. It can be summed in the wisdom that always gets snickers and snappy comebacks every time it is recalled, "Money can’t buy happiness."

[Insert Letterman/Leno/O’Brien punch line here:_____________________________]

Laugh as we must, we know, deeply and fundamentally, "Money cannot buy happiness" is tautology. Indeed, Williams James said "Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing" And psychiatrists and behavioral scientists have know the irrefutable truth of the saying for years. And I am quite sure they are not laughing.

Better external lives - money, safety, nutrition, material comforts - and we remain joyless. What are the explanations? As you might expect there are many. Here’s one I have melded together from a lot of original researchers and a lot of personal reflection:

1. We have, since man stood on two legs and made his first necklace from a tiger’s claws, been slaves to acknowledge and respect of our peers. We are a prestige-driven species.

2. This was relatively acceptable for centuries. We could tell who someone was and where they were "ranked" in society by visual clues: how many tiger claws were on their necklace or what kind of work they did or what type fur their wore in winter. Really important people wore crowns or tiaras; other upperclass folk wore varying amounts of gold and silver and jewels. Sensing one’s place in the societal pecking-order was simply a matter of visual signals. [Of course, there were "posers" even in medieval times but they were usually quickly exposed]

3. With the "gilded age" and the nouveau riche that age spawned, it became increasingly difficult to use visual clues to determine one’s place in society. This was the time (at the turn of the 20^th century) when Thorsten Veblen’s "The Theory of the Leisure Class" he completely laid bare the rampant conspicuous consumption (he coined the term) and linked it squarely to our primitive societal stratification based on possessions. [N.B. If someone could adapt his rather archaic prose to current day events, they would quickly have a best sellers; Veblen got it!]

4. The next nail in the coffin of psychological demise was mass production. Early in the 20^th century, items that were previously the "badges" of wealth became cheaper and accessible to the "everyman." The societal lines that separated the wealthy from the average consumer became increasingly blurred. Everyone’s home had indoor plumbing, no just the wealthy. Everyone had refrigerator, not just the wealthy. Everyone had an automobile, not just the wealthy. Parisian fashions were in the closets of every woman, not just the wealthy.

5. Challenged by the encroachment of the middle-class, the truly wealthy sought even more extravagant means to identify themselves. Luxury items changed from the practical and the expensive to the impractical and the super-expensive. Instead of one’s own car, the wealthy had to own a personal plane. Instead of luxury suites on ocean liners, the super-wealthy had to have their own yachts.

Thus, the never-ending cycle began. The problem was exacerbated by to explosion if mass communication that has occurred in the last half-century. Up until the 1950s and 1960s, one could display one’s social standing by simply "keeping up with the Joneses," the mythical coworkers or neighbors that you "competed" against in the "badges-of-wealth derby." If your neighbor bought a new double-burner, stainless steel gas grill, you had to buy (at a minimum) an equivalent grill. If your co-worker bought a new laptop with feature X, you must - to remain socially "neck-and-neck," had to buy a new laptop with feature X and Y. According to Veblen, tribal thinking is always with us.

"Our poverty became a reality. Not because of having less, but by our neighbors having more."

–Will Campbell, Brother to a Dragonfly

As mentioned, the societal treadmill was sped up by the mass media over the past 20 years. Now, our "competitors" are not the Joneses - our neighbors and coworkers - they are our television "friends." Psychologist Mary Pipher has written that, by the mid-1990s, 72 percent of people don’t know their neighbors. When combined with the cubicle-style workplace environment, "keeping up with Joneses" becomes problematic. Would this be a remedy to our tribal urges and halt the perpetual consumer treadmill? Not a chance!

We now have the "opportunity" to see how the obscenely "rich and famous" live. We don’t settle with subjugating our tribal urge for social standing to our own peer group. We, as a society, are shown the chimera of the "bling-bling" of multimillionaires. Now we compare ourselves with not only the Joneses but the Gates’, the P-Diddys and the Hiltons of the world. And, as one would expect, we find ourselves "deprived." Leon Festinger described this very well in 1954 in his social comparison theory. To the very core of our being, we look externally for what is "cool" and popular and, as a result, will make us - at least for a time - feel "happy." Is it any wonder then that we, as a society, are unhappy? Similarly, is it any wonder that we are always in hot pursuit of more? But, as it says in Ecclesiastes 4:4: "I have seen that every labor and every skill which is done is the result of rivalry between a man and his neighbor. This too is vanity and is like chasing the wind."

The truth is, we are all chasing the wind. And, strangely enough, if we were to catch it, it would mean very little to our overall state of mind. Satisfaction has a very short half-life. And here’s the really prickly rub: we all have set points for our mood and eventually - relentlessly - we always return to it. Let me give you an example.

David Myers, who studies what makes people "happy," believes that, despite the realities of triumph and tragedy, million-dollar lottery winners and people who are paralyzed in accidents report - within a year or so after the initial event - about equal levels of "happiness." Tragedy is not permanently depressing and sudden fortune is not permanent ecstacy. In studies, we overestimate the long-term emotional impact of very bad news and underestimate our capacity to adapt. Likewise, euphoria - e.g. state lottery winners - typically find their overall happiness responses unchanged. We generally find our way back to our pre-set emotional baseline.

Thus, "happiness" - however one measures it - seems to be a fairly static emotional parameter. Certainly, there are "rushes" to be had and there are lots of valleys as we go through life but, usually, our "happiness titer" stays stable. I suppose the pregnant question at this point is: Is there anything that an individual can do to "up-regulate" his happiness set point? The answer is yes.

But we will delay that gratification until future article. I will give you some hints - though you already know them:

• A new car, house or vacation won’t do it.
• Neither will a $10,000 shopping spree at Macy’s or Prada or Gucci.
• And "no" to the spot on "American Idol" or "Survivor."

More soon. And quit wishing you were Brad Pitt or George Clooney (or you were with brad Pitt or George Clooney!)