Are you happy? How do we measure happiness? Is Melbourne a happy city?

Melbourne’s Lord Mayor, Nick Reece, has announced a grand plan to make Melbourne the ‘most optimistic city’, including KPI’s to measure our happiness.

This audacious vision was conceived out of the recent M2050 Summit where 700 Melbournians brainstormed a future for our city as they enjoyed good wine, cheese and ‘don’t worry, be happy’ on loop (this isn’t a literal translation of what transpired!). 

VIctor Perton from the ‘Centre for Optimism’ is championing Melbourne’s new vision (neither did I know that the ‘Centre for Optimism’ was a thing!). Perton has been interviewed alongside the Lord Mayor to promote Melbourne’ new ethos. 

When a reporter contacted Perton about a Herald Sun article on the topic, he responded,

“The article was dripping with sarcasm. The writer dismissed optimism as fluff, equating it with naïveté or escapism.

How revealing.

Well, our arguments proved stronger than the cynics.

Later that day, the Lord Mayor and I appeared on several radio and television channels, putting forward a clear, confident case for optimism as a civic virtue, a strategic advantage, and a public good.”

Well, I guess it must be true then.

As I delved deeper into the website of optimism, I came across this bold and optimistic claim,  

“The answer to life’s most pressing questions is optimism. 

That is the optimism principle

The Optimism Principle distils the wisdom and insights acquired over ten (10) years of research on Australian Leadership and Optimism. We have found that optimism isn’t merely beneficial; it’s fundamental to achieving personal and organisational success and catalysing positive change.”

Hmmm. Not buying it? Neither do I.  This approach smells familiar, much like the prophets of Jeremiah’s day who repeated the mantra, ‘peace, peace’, all while the city fell apart.

“They dress the wound of my people

    as though it were not serious.

‘Peace, peace,’ they say,

    when there is no peace.’ (Jeremiah 6:14)

Like a naked Emperor parading down Swanston Street or a French Queen with an appetite to, ‘let them eat cake’, just thinking positive doesn’t make it so. You can be the most optimistic person in the world, but like the Yarra River 200 years ago, people see through it.  People need hope with substance. People need answers that go deeper than that iteration of the hedonist dream. 

Now, I love Melbourne. Melbourne is the city where I live and where Susan and I raised our children. I started this blog 8 years ago to offer ‘ideas about and for Melbourne’. So, this isn’t an anti-Melbourne rant. It is rather an appeal to be real, and to recognise that our 5 million plus people need a better hope than what the Lord Mayor is offering. 

The most obvious flaw in the Mayor’s plan is the implicit consensus that we are not a happy city. Melbourne is not an optimistic place, and we are not a particularly happy people. The Mayor wants to cultivate the mood change because optimism isn’t our thing. 

One would have to be lying on a Tahitian beach for the past 6 years not to realise that a dark cloud hovers over Melbourne’s city and suburbs. 

• Levels of youth mental health issues is beyond blue, it is one of the few true crises facing us.
• The volume of student absentee days across Prep-Year 12.
• Our State Government blows out public infrastructure projects by $ billions, and then doubles down when costs are revealed.
• Crippling State debt that will haunt generations to come.
• Youth Crime and underworld crime is increasing and police often feel helpless to intervene. 
• The cost of housing and the cost of living are driving 100,000s of families to despair
• Children need their mum and dad, but parents are caught in this vicious cycle of chasing the Australian dream, which forces parents to work more and earn more and therefore spend less time at home. 
• Social fracturing as demonstrated by weekly protests and growing anti-semitism.
• Public transport that works and runs on time. 

And the list continues longer than the Nepean Hwy.

Despite popular conception, our situation wasn’t created by the pandemic. Two years of almost constant lockdowns and restrictions certainly took their toll on us, but it wasn’t the catalyst that brought about pessimism or diminished energy and positive outlook. COVID functioned like a fast retreating high tide, exposing our hidden skeletons. The pandemic uncovered conditions that were already at work in our city: We are not happy. We are more anxious, troubled, divided and afraid, and with little hope of that trend changing soon. 

Our optimist friends point to, 

“we are cool.

From laneway galleries and artisan coffee to the Australian Open and cutting-edge science precincts, Melbourne has earned global recognition as one of the coolest cities on the planet. A city of thinkers, creators, performers, innovators.”

Sure, I guess that’s kind of true. But is this the sum total of what constitutes ‘happiness’? 

It is somewhat telling that, as far as most global measures are concerned, it doesn’t get better than Melbourne. We are still considered one of the most liveable cities in the world, and yet we don’t feel it. When it comes to education, standard of living, food, sport, and culture, we are the Mount Everest of metropolises, as tall as Babel. Nevertheless, Melbourne is a melancholic city. We are more Nick Cave than Kylie Minogue. We are Marc Rothko, not Andy Warhol, we’re into abstract expressionism not pop art. We are a monochrome city. Our uniform is black on black with only the occasional shade of grey to separate the layers of black. Moodiness is what we do well. Perhaps part of our problem is our insufferable pride. Our expectations are so high and our competitiveness so insistent, that we normalcy and averageness are seen as failure. 

There is also an intrinsic misstep in our approach to life. We decided that we no longer need God and we don’t need a new creation, because we can create heaven on earth. And we succeeded, and it wasn’t enough. 

In 2006, world-renowned psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote, ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’. Haidt argues, 

“Happiness is not something that you can find, acquire, or achieve directly. You have to get the conditions right and then wait.

“Those who think money can’t buy happiness just don’t know where to shop … People would be happier and healthier if they took more time off and spent it with their family and friends, yet America has long been heading in the opposite direction. People would be happier if they reduced their commuting time, even if it meant living in smaller houses, yet American trends are toward even larger houses and ever longer commutes. People would be happier and healthier if they took longer vacations even if that meant earning less, yet vacation times are shrinking in the United States, and in Europe as well. People would be happier, and in the long run and wealthier, if they bought basic functional appliances, automobiles, and wristwatches, and invested the money they saved for future consumption; yet, Americans and in particular spend almost everything they have – and sometimes more – on goods for present consumption, often paying a large premium for designer names and superfluous features.”

Interestingly, ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’ was followed in 2012 with ‘The Righteous Mind’, and then, ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’ (2018), and finally, in 2024, ‘The Anxious Generation. If we need an illustration that speaks to the unravelling of a generation in 12 short years, Haidt’s thoughtful output is demonstrative. 

We don’t overturn an anxious generation with skin-deep positive thinking, but with hope and a hope that has deeper meaning and consolation than a good coffee and money to pay the rent. That’s the problem, Melbourne’s new vision isn’t honest enough. Sure, we can pump out Pharrell Williams ‘Happy’ all day long, and ‘look at the bright side of life’, but cliches and forced smiles won’t cut it. 

We have lost the ability to forgive. We are proficient at naming and shaming, while we wait for the day when our own sins will be exposed. We don’t know how to forgive, and without forgiveness, there is no happiness.

We have lost our grip on community. We know how much people need other people. Friendships and human connection is a basic life requirement, and yet almost every step in our society works against building community. 

We have lost contentment. Contented lives are anathema in Melbourne, as businesses, schools and sporting codes vie for our attention and promise more.  The contented person is almost frowned upon. How can you be happy with a small house or less than average income? How dare you be happy while living with chronic illness. 

We have lost hope. Happiness without hope cannot exist, but where in our city do we find hope? Hope that depends on us will either lead to pride because ‘we can do it’ or to despair because reality catches up and we can’t. Which leads to this next ingredient essential for true happiness.

We have lost transcendence. This is something Zoomers seem to be waking up to as many under 25s are beginning to ask questions about spiritual realities and are beginning to read the Bible and turn up to churches around Melbourne. While my generation mocks Christianity and even calls it ‘dangerous’, and while Melbourne Councils find little to no room for places of worship in their grand designs, on the ground, there is an emerging recognition that we need God and that we are wired for God. 

Ecclesiastes, the ancient book of wisdom, was right all along, 

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

The Bible’s offering goes deeper than any optimist strategy. The Scriptures address the raw and real of the human condition. There’s no sugar coating in the Bible. We do however, find costly love and sacrifice, and hope for the helpless and joy that will outlast the best of what Melbourne has to offer. 

As a Christian, I don’t subscribe to optimism or to pessimism, because the good news of Jesus Christ breaks pessimism apart and it won’t give room to hubristic ventures. This good news message offers people a way of viewing life with greater clarity, humility, thankfulness and joy. It doesn’t ignore material needs and the gains from improving education and green spaces, and hospitals, it does provide a firmer foundation, and it breaks the world open to what has eternal value.

The world’s most famous book on happiness (joy) is found in the Bible, Paul’s letter to the Philippians. From beginning to end, this short letter is filled with expressions of joy by man who was struck in a prison cell and facing an uncertain end. 

“Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹ For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. ²² If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! ²³ I am torn between the two…

whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him… not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[ Christ… I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”

If we are hoping for happiness, we will need to find forgiveness, friends, contentment, hope and transcendence. I’ll happily argue any day of the week that these realities are found in the person of Jesus and experienced in local churches that are scattered around Melbourne. If these KPIs are missing from Melbourne’s vision, then the project is already bound to fail. 

Our Lord Mayor’s vision for Melbourne is too superficial. We are not plastic people who can be made happy by sensory experiences alone. Human beings are made for communion with God and made for community. The heart cannot be satisfied by material gain alone. As Jesus famously quipped, ‘what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul’.