the right to be happy

「不平等じゃないよ。みんな幸せなんだから」
即答されて驚いた。私が交換留学生として一年間留学したデンマークでは、税金が累進課税で最大７０％近くもとられるが、高収入の人も低収入の人も同じ福祉を受ける。その社会システムは不平等ではないかと疑問を持ったが、それに対してホストファミリーが言ったのが最初の言葉だった。
デンマークは調査結果から世界一幸福な国と言われている。世界にはいまだに多くの途上国がある中、一見それらの国々に最も縁遠い国のように思われるが、積極的に途上国に貢献している姿が見えた。
<中略>
途上国に必要なものを補うことは、決して不平等ではないことを私たちは自覚すべきだ。なぜなら、地球上の人々はみな平等に幸せになる権利があるのだから。　　　　（石岡沙保）

"It's fair because everyone's happy"
The instant reply surprised me.  Denmark, where I studied for a year as an exchange student, has progressive taxation which makes the people pay 70% of their income at max.  People with high income and those with low income are supported by the same welfare.  It made me wonder if that social system was really fair, but the above was what my host family said.
According to a research, Denmark is said to be the happiest country.  There are still many developing countries in the world, and Denmark seems to be far away, but I found out they were giving a lot of support.
...  (In Denmark, there is a day when all high school students work instead of going to school and donate their pay to developing countries.) ...
We should remind ourselves that it is not unfair to support developing countries, because everyone on earth has the right to be equally happy.         (Saho Ishioka)

I read this essay on the newspaper.  It reminded me that equality itself was not all that important.  I mean, I would regard it unfair if I worked like a dog and ended up feeding people who only worked half as much as me, but if I were happy with that situation, and everyone else were as happy as me, I guess we could call that situation "fair".  No matter how "unfair" it seems objectively (or according to the workload), it's "fair" in that everyone is happy.

I once told my friend that I didn't like it when I got something out of luck.  "It's kind of unfair.  I know luck plays a big role in life; I wouldn't have entered med school without luck, but I still think my effort played a bigger role"

My friend pointed out that that effort itself came from luck.  I was born to my parents who valued hard work and taught me the satisfaction that came with it.  I was born with the genes that enabled me to study hard.  What if I were raised by a single dad who didn't value hard labor?  What if I were born with a mental disorder?  What if I were born in the middle of a desert instead of a city near Tokyo?

We're not made equally.  We're all born in different environments with a different combination of genes - different color, different shape, different height, different everything; even our ability to feel happiness is different.  But it's true that we all have the equal right to be happy.

Hard work is not necessarily rewarded equally - if you're successful, it's probably more because of luck than you could imagine.  I guess a social system like Denmark's does make sense in many ways.