The little pleasures of the French Despite society's demands for happiness, just under one in two French people say they are happy (43%), although only 13% say they are truly unhappy. It should be noted that a significant proportion of the population declare themselves neither happy nor unhappy (43%). For more than nine out of ten French people, happiness is above all a question of health (94%). Nonetheless, the French don't forget their "everyday pleasures", which come in second place (91% - 46% of whom "completely agree"), ahead of values such as family (89%) and friends (85%). Specifically, these preferred "little pleasures" can be found in "leisure, culture and cultural products" (44%), "short breaks/weekends away" (42%) and high-tech products (32%). The majority of French people are prepared to sacrifice certain consumption habits in order to continue to treat themselves to little pleasures: 27% would be prepared to sacrifice their lunches out in order to give priority to "home-cooked" meals, 26% would also be prepared to reduce their shopping budget outside sale periods, and 25% to reduce their outings. The first happiness Finding happiness may simply mean finding it again. In what distant memories does this complex, furtive sensation we call happiness originate? Today, we know that emotional nourishment is indispensable to human beings. Without love, children die, physically or psychologically. Without it, they suffer, and the adults they become will have trouble finding happiness. It's as if being happy means rediscovering and reawakening the memory of past happiness, and more specifically of the very first of these pleasures: that of being loved and protected. Like an early imprint of happiness. In psychology, theories of imprinting reveal that there are certain periods in life that favor certain types of learning. Languages, for example: if we've heard them early and often, we'll find it easier to acquire them. Similarly, the language of happiness is more accessible to us if it was part of our early childhood, if we learned it when we didn't yet know how to speak. [...] Beyond early impressions, the capacity for happiness is also based on the taste and desire to make ourselves happy, and to make the effort to do so. Why this almost animal-like conviction that happiness exists, and therefore that it's neither crazy nor futile to seek it? Why this stubborn - and sometimes clumsy - quest in most of us? Why can't we be content with all those moments of animal well-being that a materially acceptable life offers? To have a full belly, to be warm, to know pleasure... Why this need for transcendence, for plenitude, which we seek, and which we sometimes find in the feeling of happiness, without this ability to give meaning to our lives, how can we resist gloom and despair? Being happy is not a luxury, but a necessity. Happiness is what makes life psychologically possible. We don't live to be happy, but because we can be, as Paul Claudel wrote: "Happiness is not the goal, but the means of life."
