Were they unemployed for a lengthy period? Had the poor state of the economy made work impossible to find?
No. On the contrary, this person has had a successful home business for several years and helps her husband with a successful business of his own.
Did they receive a huge raise, big benefits and a "golden parachute?"
Nope. Neither big money nor power will be forthcoming, yet this person stated that she was the happiest she'd ever been.
Apparently "money" and "power" are not synonyms for "freedom" and "happiness."
So much effort is exerted to try and convince us that our happiness will derive from our freedom to purchase things we want, as quickly as we decide we want them. Maybe this concept requires that degree of effort because it is false. As Dostoevsky points out in The Brothers Karamazov, freedom to acquire material things instantly isn't actually freedom, but a new kind of slavery. He says of this conviction, "And therefore the idea of serving mankind, of the brotherhood and oneness of people, is fading more and more in the world, and indeed the idea now even meets with mockery, for how can one drop one's habits, where will this slave go now that he is so accustomed to satisfying the innumerable needs he himself has invented? He is isolated, and what does he care for the whole? They have succeeded in amassing more and more things, but have less and less joy."
