[athenot]

I know you meant this as a joke but there's some applicability here. Seeking happiness can produce a lot of negative emotions, as you become very aware that many other people are way happier than you (or at the very least, show off a high level of happiness while hiding the details). It's possible to get into this state where things are never happy enough in this pursuit of happiness.

But all the happy people I know have a deep appreciation for the little things in life, a gratitude for whatever good comes their way, no matter how slim it is. In that respect, they are optimizing for allowing all bits of happiness that comes their way to actually have an effect on them.

[bluetomcat]

Growing up in a former Eastern bloc country transitioning towards capitalism (Bulgaria), I was able to witness the change in people's behaviours and social expectations. Greed and arrogance had suddenly become the order of the day in the 1990s, in exchange for the ability to gain status and material possessions previously unavailable (Western cars, modern clothing, etc.).

As a result, our current society is much more atomised and the feeling of connectedness is lost to a large degree. In the past people looked at happiness as a way to exist in a group, now it's everyone's own game of "finding truth and happiness" (often at the cost of screwing up others, even people from your family).

[badpun]

Very similar thing happened in Poland. I remember growing up in the 80s in a typical soviet-style appartment block house of 30 flats. My mother used to know almost every family in the building, she roughly knew what was going on in their lives, sometimes helped them in small ways or have gotten the help from them. It was like a small village community. Partly it was dictated by neccessity - due to constant shortages of goods, it was crucial to have "connections", that could help you buy things like refrigerators, cars or even stood in line for bread for you.

After the transformation of 1989, which in Poland was performed by the government in the form of the "shock therapy" (their term), lots of inequality appeared almost right away. Some people did well, some were barely getting by, and some lost their livelihood and were in very bad shape. The community atmosphere of the building vanished, it started to become vandalized or occupied by drunkards/homeless. Ties between families have loosened, the "connections" became unnecessary as the material needs were now efficiently satisfied by the market forces and basic capitalism. The building is now just a bunch of people that share the same roof, but otherwise don't want to have anything to do with each other (as is standard in other capitalist countries).