Is payment unhappiness? What exactly is human happiness in the first place?

The other day, I watched an interview with President Mujica, and it was quite memorable, wasn't it? I imagine many people shared it. I, too, largely agreed with President Mujica's opinions.

My impression was that the president spoke straightforwardly about a certain kind of simple truth, such as how he must live the same life as the majority since he is chosen by the majority, and how he must raise his own standard of living in accordance with the people's standard of living, and so on. He said that even if people think that way, it's quite difficult to actually do it.

In particular, when he said that he wondered if Japanese people were truly happy, I thought 'Oh!'. Perhaps not many people can truly say they are happy, being swayed by industry. Japan wasn't that high in happiness rankings either, was it? 46th place, I think. In that sense, I felt he hit the nail on the head.

However, there was just one point that made me go 'Hmm?'. That was the idea that 'by not consuming much, you don't have to be chased by payments for large purchases, and you don't have to work desperately, so you are free and happy.' I, however, felt that having many payments or working desperately to make payments was also part of human happiness.

'A life of freedom without buying anything' is boring. You can live without trying too hard. Even if you don't work desperately, and spend most of your day playing, you can still live a life that's better than average. I've been in such a situation. In fact, I could still do that if I wanted to. But I wanted to escape that situation as quickly as possible. Because I was just bored. Not just bored, but anxious, wondering if it was really okay for me to be so idle. I don't think anyone would consider that happiness. Perhaps it's also because I don't have a family yet. That's why the parts about love and family resonated with me. (laughs)

Being chased by payments is certainly unpleasant. That cannot be called happiness. You have to earn money because life is hard. Debts incurred daily due to one's own laxity, those are unpleasant. However, if you pursue something yourself and it results in large payments, then it becomes a truly enjoyable investment. For example, buying a house to get your ideal family, or taking out a loan to start a company. Consumption that helps you move forward is incredibly fun.

If, hypothetically, there was a society where everything could be obtained for free, or where there was no price to pay. If that were a normal society, I think people would stop striving for things or working hard towards goals. It's because there's something to pay, because there's a price, that we feel value. It's because we take risks that we can feel great meaning in what we purchase. I feel that payments create meaning that allows us to feel value. To put it simply, you'd get bored. With everything.

For example, let's say you could travel abroad for free, going anywhere and everywhere. Let's say you became super rich and could go wherever you wanted, whenever you wanted. That kind of life gets boring. This 'getting bored' is troublesome. Truly. Traveling the world and putting yourself in fresh environments and extraordinary situations is fun, but if you 'experienced the extraordinary so much that you got used to it,' then it would be like erasing your own capacity for excitement.

I myself tend to get bored easily. For now, the only thing I don't get bored of is work. Honestly, I don't get bored of creating websites or building businesses either. I like it because I get to respond to different demands each time, and while things might seem similar, they're never exactly the same. I think even if this became a job in a different genre, as long as it's something challenging, I wouldn't get bored.

Even overseas trips, even to southern islands, when I returned to Japan the other day, I suddenly thought. I'm getting tired of ordinary travel itself, it's about time. Instead of just going, if I'm going anyway, I want to have a more exciting experience, an experience I can't usually have, I'm driven by such a desire. I wonder what would happen if I were to encounter such an unusual experience, and then even get tired of that, I think.

In other words, what I want to say is that 'payment is also a material for creating happiness.' You get excited when you obtain something because there's a barrier. You feel a sense of accomplishment when you achieve something you couldn't do before. Such feelings are very happy. And I think payment, to a certain extent, forms the foundation of that.

Let me tell you something a bit extreme.

While understanding that Mujica isn't necessarily saying this, for now, let's consider the meaning of making payments.

If we lived in a world where we could get everything without paying money, would people still actively say, 'I want to do this!' or 'I want to do that!'? I don't think they would, and I think that would be very painful. In that sense, I don't think payments are so bad.

However, I'm not talking about debts incurred due to one's own foolishness. I mean payments made after pursuing something. In other words, an investment to achieve what you want to do. Isn't it precisely because of this investment that the excitement exists when you succeed, when you grasp something?

And if you avoid payments that involve pursuing and obtaining something, that is, if you avoid risk, many exciting things in the world will disappear. For example, technological development. I want to see technological development, and I like to touch and feel worlds and experiences I've never seen before. I like not only seeing and receiving such things but also creating them myself. I also like it when mechanisms that provide many surprises are created, and when the world changes because of them.

That means a world without risk would be overwhelmingly unhappy for someone like me. Even jumping into a situation where you can take on a certain amount of risk is happiness if you want to live an exciting life. Enjoying that risk is happiness, because we are the kind of people who deliberately build high walls in front of ourselves and enjoy overcoming the walls we've built. A world or way of life without that is not happy at all, for me.

Mujica says we buy things with time, but if the time spent itself is enjoyable, then isn't that fine? So, what I think is that his words were very profound and thought-provoking, but for example, if someone who had always wanted to pursue something with risk were to think, 'Oh, I guess I don't have to do anything after all,' I wonder how much enjoyment would disappear from this world.

I am, without a doubt, the kind of person who can't be satisfied. I don't really know if that's good or bad, and I don't think it's a matter of good or bad. But he, too, must have invested time and money in building schools and cultivating flowers. He wouldn't say that process, the time spent there, was wasted. I can't help but feel that Mujica himself surely found happiness in interacting with people and dedicating himself to the happiness of the world. Even if that process hadn't existed, I believe he would have lived happily. However, he was the kind of person who couldn't overlook problems, and he felt a certain happiness in solving those problems, which is probably why he became such a good president.

But on the other hand, it's also true that it reminded me of the importance of the 'off' part of 'on and off'. I'm far too much of an amateur when it comes to how to enjoy my time off. Thinking 'that won't do', it was also a big trigger for me to seriously think about how to spend my time off.