Attracting Abundance

The Law

Two Doors to Success

Happiness - IV

"Happiness is neither a frivolity nor luxury.
It is deep seated yearning shared by all
 members of the human family. It should be
denied to no one and available to all."

... Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General, UN

Happiness is a very generic term. People use this interchangeably with life satisfaction, well being, feeling good and many more. For the time being let us use the generic interpretation of the word happiness. We will look at more concrete connotations of the word "happiness" later.

Before we enter into the "how" of happiness, I would want to highlight the gravity that happiness and its associated emotions has assumed, not only to the individual but to an organisation and the nation as a whole. 

Happiness has become an essential topic for science and policy making. During the last decade, happiness has become an agenda on government policies. A vast amount of research is being done as the impact of happiness on productivity, reduced expenditure on health and harmony within a community and nation is now well established. The status of happiness covering the entire globe has been documented as will be evident from the two happiness global maps published in World Happiness Reports.

The vast amount of data that is being assimilated and the extensive research done and in progress are fair indicators of the realization that "happiness" is not a "new age" phenomena, but has a direct bearing on health, growth and economics of an individual, organisation and nation. 

While scientific research has been going on for quite some time, deeper insights into the mechanics of happiness have been gained over the last two decades. The advancement in measurement tools such as brain imagery has been of immense help in gaining these insights and in making the research more focused. Happiness, as a subject, has been included in the curriculum of prestigious and premier institutes like UC Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, London School of Economics etc.

"GDP measures everything, in short, 

except that which makes life worthwhile"

... Robert F Kennedy

One of the pathbreaking countries in adopting happiness as a national policy is the country of Bhutan which in 1972 adopted Gross National Happiness as a measure of prosperity over the conventional Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The governments of many other countries such as US, UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Japan etc. are taking concrete steps in monitoring and pursuing happiness as a government policy and measuring happiness as a measure of progress and prosperity. 

Sustainable happiness is seldom gained from materialistic gains. Materialistic gains over a larger cross section of population are linked to economic growth and industrialization which is fraught with the risk of causing widespread dissatisfaction in terms of pollution, generation of non-recyclable wastes, deforestation, thinning of bio-diversity and depletion of natural resources especially water. It is established that the negatives of industrialization are a source of stress. Does it lead us to the conclusion that improving the quality of life comes at a cost and that cost is happiness? Are ways available to find a meeting ground? This has become a major agenda issue of the international body such as the UN and Organization from Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD).

Happiness is a state of mind, of "feel goodness". Every individual has a different take on what makes him or her happy. For some it may be money, for some fame, and for some a medal etc. What happiness is probably perceived by all in more or less similar ways, but what make for happiness may be widely diverging from person to person.

Research on happiness can be thought of falling into two traditions - hedonia and eudaimonia. 

The hedonistic view of happiness - hedonia - is just the opposite of suffering; the presence of hedonia indicates absence of pain. Because of this hedonists believe that the purpose of life is to maximize happiness, which minimizes misery. Hedonism is linked to propagating pleasure by any means available, including sexuality, excessive consumption of food, alcohol, drugs and other targets of religious and societal scorn. ( Waterman, 1993).

Eudaimonia is associated with the extent to which activities are associated with opportunities to develop one's best potential, with investing a great deal of effort, with having clear goals, and with feeling challenged. In short eudaimonia defines happiness as the pursuit of becoming a better person by challenging self intellectually, physically and spiritually. 

The distinction between the two comes down to whether happiness is a destination (hedonic view) or a journey (eudaimonic view). Put another way hedonism is the  belief that happiness is deserved externally, while eudaimonism on the belief that happiness comes from within.


See you again


Namaste


Prabir