Cheap thrills never bring happiness. You need a community
ON THURSDAY the Government released a set of statistics measuring our wellbeing. The figures related to education and showed the more you learn, the happier you are likely to be. Soon to follow are the results of a survey of 15,000 people on health and wh
FRIENDS have suggested I am the least qualified person to talk about happiness because I am often down and sometimes profoundly depressed. I think that’s where my qualification comes from, because to know happiness, it helps to know unhappiness.
The day of my nervous breakdown in 1986 was the worst day of my life yet also the best. The worst, because the insides of my head were exploding and in my madness I was convinced I was about to die. The best, in retrospect, because as a result I confronted a few realities: I had to stop drinking, I had to face up to my depression and I had to sort out my priorities, which essentially meant key relationships, work and politics.
“Can politics deliver happiness, and should it try?” is a question Prime Minister David Cameron has asked. I think some of his policies cause unhappiness but the idea that happiness should at least be considered when proposing a policy is a good one. He has called the improving of our society’s sense of wellbeing “the central political challenge of our time”.
Fond as he is of saying whatever he happens to be talking about is a top priority, there will be scepticism about his commitment but I hope he is serious about delivering on wellbeing.
Our approach to the economy, under both Labour and Tory governments, is to focus on GDP. Yet although we have grown much wealthier as a country and, most of us, as individuals, we are not happier.
The Labour peer, Professor Richard Layard, the first British “happiness economist”, made a big impact on me when he superimposed two graphs, one for personal wealth, which showed a steady rise, and one for happiness, which showed a flatline, ending with a bit of a dip. A driving focus on personal wealth creation may well bring material gain but it is in our relationships with others and within communities that we will find happiness.
The tiny Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan has for many years had gross national happiness as its main indicator. Once it was seen by the bigger countries as hopelessly idealistic, perhaps a bit silly. Now it seems the Bhutanese were ahead of their time. The Centre for Bhutan Studies developed a system for measuring well-being, based on four “pillars”: the promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development; the preservation and promotion of traditional cultural values; conservation of the natural environment; good governance.
If you think that sounds a bit wordy let’s sloganise it. Vote for: a fair economy, a strong culture, a healthy environment and good governance. What leader in the modern world would set his or her face against any of that? The
‘In my madness I felt sure I was
about to die’