Happiness: Lessons from other worlds!

India’s recent ranking at 140th position among 150 nations in the World Happiness Index has left many of us shaken, worried and wondering where we seem to be going wrong.

Honestly, most would concede that we are not a happy lot after all. You need to see how we behave on the streets if an accident occurs: the immediate response of those involved include to taking law into our hands, verbally or physically bully the “offender”, extort, or even kill, while most others would pass by, stopping perhaps to take a picture on their cellphones!

On a cheering buck-up note among the happiness depleted Indians, we have our own islands of happiness: Chandigarh is ranked no 1 and Lucknow ranked at second 2nd place in our Indian happiness scores. Lucknow’s high position has raised many eyebrows given the odds of pollution, traffic jams, social and cultural diversity, but people here do appear more satisfied and less stressed than many places across the country.

Lucknow organized an international convention on “Promoting Happiness through Public Policy” on November 16 to take its position further and retain its advantageous position.

Bhutan has been a success story of sorts, ranking 6th in one of the global surveys. To share what makes Bhutan a happy place, the convention had its education minister TS Powdyel, a very peaceful appearing person as its chief guest.

His message was simple and clear. I could summarize it thus:

1.Bhutan decided to put happiness as its north star... i.e. the target to pursue as a nation and people, rather than GDP which is the usual measure of progress.

2.It developed its own Foundation Pillars for Happiness, that includes

a.Balanced equitable socio-economic development, rather than the skewed one where the rich are very rich and the poor remain very poor.

b.Emphasis on conservation of natural resources, such as forests, fauna and flora

c.Preservation of cultural heritage, rather than blindly westernizing and losing one’s own identity. (He was dressed in his traditional Bhutanese dress rather than in a suit and tie)

d.Promotion of good governance.

3.He further emphasized the need to go green…in terms of environment, energy, schools and tradition.

Exploring the relationship between ‘health and happiness’ can be challenging. While it is axiomatic that a person suffering from a physical health problem or unmet material needs such as food, clothing and shelter, can hardly be expected to be happy, the converse that people in good state of physical health are more often happy may not be true, and adding the much needed spiritual aspect to our development.

The Lucknow Management Association and Global India need to be congratulated for thinking about and organizing this conference, but the challenge is now to take it to the next step and make people around us happy!

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ‘HEALTH AND HAPPINESS’ CAN BE CHALLENGING...