On the Trick to Happiness

From The Birth of Plenty by William Bernstein:

One of the strongest correlations with happiness is the perception that an individual has control of his life.  The solid connection between individual autonomy and happiness has been substantiated by surveys done in scores of nations, from Argentina to Zimbabwe (p. 302).

It's a trick, Ashton Allen sang, believing that you're in control.   Whether in terms of Calvinism vs. Arminianism, or the more philosophical free-will vs. determinism, control -- and specifically, whether we have it -- is something we've been debating since we first learned to debate.  I once heard an agnostic on the issue (Ok, it was me) quip that even if God has predestined all of our choices, it must mean something that he evidently made it so that we would experience them as if we had control over them.

Do we really have control over our choices though?  As a free man living in a liberal western democracy, it certainly seems like I do.  I live in my own house, listen to whatever music I want, eat what I want when I want, blog when I want, and so on.  It seems like I have control.

But do I really?  My alarm went off at 6AM this morning, and that certainly wasn't my choice: it was my boss's!  "But it's your choice to go to work" you might say.  Not really.  Everyone else in the Western world has chosen an economic system that necessitates one having money if they are to acquire the basic needs of living.  The aggregate of all those choices has created a system that robs me of mine: I have no choice but to work.  And all the same, I've been inculturated to desire a certain standard of living, and now I doubt I could settle for less if I wanted to.  Once I get to work the boss already has his music playing.  I wouldn't choose to listen to Hal & Oates, but it would be rude to shut it off on him, so relational etiquette robs me of yet another choice.  And on it goes.  By the end of the day, for how many of the choices I made did I really truly have the practical option of choosing otherwise?  Very few, if any.  Even my choice of socks was predestined by the availability of which ones had made it through the laundry.

So how much control do we really have?  More importantly, why is it so important to us to believe that we have it?  And why do we need to believe that in order to be happy?