Society does not usually recognize some important contributions of wealthy individuals.
For one thing, their ups and downs, successes and failures, and their pleasures and sufferings, can be a mirror for other people for others to realize that, actually, there are many ways to do better.
Indeed, many people can do better by learning from others' failures, according to specialists at the Centre of Clinical Psychology, Peking University.
Although those who are less materially successful do have simple things to worry about, psychologists at Peking University have discovered that the wealthier individuals become, the more problems they may have. Despite the sometimes carefree and glamorous appearance such people may have, they tend to have more complicated problems.
They may be trying so hard to earn physical comforts, they have forgotten what a happy heart means. That can lead to broken relationships, or irritation or substance-abuse problems. Some simply ruin their lives.
Most of us had no idea how serious all these things were until the beginning of this year, when two billionaires, Zhao Enlong, the tycoon in middle China's Shanxi Province, and Xu Kai, vice-president of a big corporation with 4,000 employees with total assets of 7.1 billion yuan (US$ 0.8 billion) in West China's Shaanxi Province, each committed suicide in their mid-50s.
And the mirror effect from their deaths has seen a surging number of psychological consults in China's major cities, most of them only affordable to rich souls.
The Peking University Centre of Clinical Psychology charges 1,200 yuan (US$ 145) for a 50-minute consulting session.
Some Guangzhou and Shenzhen consultants charge as much as 2,000 yuan (US$ 242) for a session (also 50 minutes), and there is great demand for people who are eager to pay for anything with an instant soothing effect.
Now, from the mirror of rich people's psychology, the view that we get seems pitifully distorted. Is this the price China has to pay for its unprecedented development? Can its citizens be assured of any sense of security if people with such unstable mental conditions run more and more companies?
Some columnists in the Chinese-language press have even cited what Karl Marx once wrote, that if there is a chance for a 300 percent profit, capitalists are willing to do whatever they can to get it, even it means they may get themselves hanged.
Yet those determined to get themselves hanged would be cold hearted enough as not to have any sense of remorse. What society should do is not to hold those queuing up at the psychological consulting services for criminal investigations, but to provide them with real help.
Nor are the rich the only people who are queuing up for psychological help. All who are involved in modern industries and urban lifestyles tend to need it. People all have to cope with changes. Things like broken family ties, loneliness, dealing with strangers and managing new relationships, and chasing new jobs and new opportunities are part of people's everyday lives.
The seriousness of rich people's conditions, including suicides of seemingly successful entrepreneurs, only signals the change that many other members of society are going to go through.
And people can also learn, from what can and what cannot help their wealthy fellows, what kind of help they should look for.
While rebuilding the sense of community and self, though sounding somewhat like empty slogans, are the things that must be part of everyone's happy life. This is why, perhaps, other people should thank rich individuals pioneering the demand for psychological help in modern China. They are showing the pitfalls ahead.
(China Daily May 23, 2005)
