Background
Generally speaking, the ultimate goal of a human being is to
maximize his/her happiness. Pursuit of happiness is an important human
behaviour. However, economists, social scientists, psychologists and
intellectuals are baffled about how to measure happiness. What constitutes
happiness has been an area of serious provocation and studies by economists and
social scientists. In recent years, the factors causing happiness and the tools
and techniques of measuring happiness have been a cause for much debate.
However, one thing has been firmly established – that the traditional concept
of development as measured by Gross National Product is one sided and at best
only shows one aspect of growth. International organizations such as the United
Nations have long recognized the inadequacy of GNP to measure human happiness
and have included parameters such as human development to measure the progress
(or the lack of it!) of a nation. Closer home, we have our own Gross National Happiness
(GNH), initially propounded by our 4th king, His Majesty Jigme
Singye Wangchuck.
Purpose: In this essay I would like to delve into the essence of happiness from
a micro perspective by looking at certain factors, which I think, contribute to
the happiness of an individual. Understanding individual happiness is crucial
because a society is but a sum total of individuals.
Subjectivity: Happiness, to my mind, is highly subjective. What defines or
constitutes happiness differs from individual to individual. Within an
individual it differs from time to time. Human beings have different tastes and
preferences; they are also driven by different ambitions and aspirations in
life. Life of a human being is nothing but an exploratory journey. Man
undergoes this journey choosing the kind of vehicle he likes and the type of
road he prefers. Happiness, therefore, is relative to his aspirations and state
of mind. To some people in Myanmar, happiness is, unfortunately, about chasing
the Rohingyas out of the country; to a Rohingya, happiness is finding the first
square feet of land after an arduous boat journey seeking refuge.
A. H Maslow in his theory of the
hierarchy of human needs suggests that all human efforts are motivated by a
need to satisfy certain basic human needs. Maslow informs us that the
satisfaction of physiological needs such as hunger and sleep are the most basic
needs of human beings. For without basic physical comfort and well-being, man
cannot proceed onwards to fulfill his other needs such as need for self-esteem and
need for power. After the basic needs are fulfilled human beings are not
necessarily motivated by money and more money alone.
Livelihood: A source of steady income is
important for livelihood and basic happiness. A state of unemployment is
certainly not a happy state to be in. When the evening meal is not a certainty
simply because what you have been taught in your higher secondary school is not
good enough to earn you a plate of rice and ema-datshi,
life becomes an ordeal. Happiness amongst the unemployed merely becomes a
word understood as an antonym for sad. We don’t need Maslow to tell us that a
hungry man is an angry man. Only when people are able to fulfill their basic
needs such as hunger and social security and are free from fear would they be
able to appreciate the importance of larger collective issues such as
environmental protection and cultural promotion.
Parental care: Parental care is crucial for an effective upbringing of children. A
good parental drive leads to proper parental care and upbringing, which in turn
brings out the best in children and human beings. As a parent of two young
sons, I often wonder about their education, their future and their lives beyond
their parents. I believe that parents need to be good role models for their
children. Becoming a parent is easy for it is merely a biological function.
However, becoming good parents requires much more; it requires discipline,
transparency, diligence and empathy. It is, therefore, important for us to
teach our children to appreciate what we have and not to crave for what is
unattainable.
Money and wealth: Money, no doubt, is an important
determinant of happiness. However, it doesn’t mean that money alone can bring
happiness or for that matter more money would mean more happiness. Today’s
children, especially in towns and urban centers are a happy-go-lucky lot. For many students in Thimphu, Bhutan (as in
many parts of the so-called developed world) who go to private schools in four
wheel drives and SUVs driven by their parents, school is just an extension of
the good life that they have at home. For such children, who go to bed with
their smart phones and wake up to the call of their iPads, school has long
ceased to be a necessity. For them school has rather become an inconvenience –
a hindrance to the celebratory lifestyle that they live at home. These children
of rich and educated parents are definitely happier than, say, the three
siblings in Trashigang who live in a makeshift hut because their father is undergoing
medical treatment in Thimphu and there is no one to look after them. If we compare these two groups of children,
both need money to be ‘happy’. While the Trashigang destitute need money to buy
their basic needs, the rich urban children need a lot of money to maintain
their exalted level of existence.
Social security and network: Man is one of the most social of all animals; very few
one can live in isolation and in seclusion. We need support from family and
friends to enable us to realize our full potential in whatever we choose to do. Social security is an important requirement and
it forms a crucial instrument of survival. The ability of an individual to
understand the opportunities and challenges of the environment that he or she
lives in and to be able to adapt to that environment is fundamental. In a way,
one has to resort to some kind of a SWOT analysis to fully understand the
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced. An individual is better
able to survive in today’s cutthroat competitive world if he is able to adapt to
the society within the limitations of his strengths and weaknesses. At the same
time, the individual should be able to realize his/her strengths and
opportunities and use them to stand out and make positive contributions to the
society.
Without support from members of our
family and friends, it would not be possible for us to receive the much-needed
feedback on our daily activities. Feedback is said to be the breakfast of
champions. And without support, feedback, criticism, appraisal and evaluation
from members of our family and friends, it would be difficult to undertake and
achieve anything. Depending on his interest, man continuously looks for ways in
which he can learn something new, create something new and different, visit new
places, etc. In all his endeavors man looks for recognition for something he
does. The recognitions he receives propel him forward and set him on a new path,
to new and higher levels of creativity and achievement.
Ethics and aesthetics: People practice different trades and vocations to earn
their livelihoods. However, people with a higher aesthetic sense tend to
execute given tasks more efficiently and with a better visual impact. Take a
simple case of electrical house wiring – some electricians tend to give a
better finish to their jobs. In the process they not only perform the core
function of electrification but also do it more beautifully. When you perform a
job to the better satisfaction of who you are doing it for, it definitely
enhances your own sense of achievement. Similarly, people do different kinds of
business, essentially to make money. However, while making money they must be
mindful of their social responsibilities and adhere to norms and laws. Ethical
conducts in businesses, as in other walks of life, give you better peace of
mind and societal acceptance. This contributes to happiness.
Environment: A growing number of our people
are caught in rural-urban drift, in some cases leading to family rifts. In our towns, when you wake up in the
morning, the first sight and sound that greet you are the yelps of scabies
ridden pups feeding on the dead corpse of their mother. As a Buddhist, who believes in universal love
and care for all sentient beings, your emotions are hugely challenged by such
sights and sounds.
Parents, especially in urban areas, face an increasingly
uphill task in bringing up their children. Bringing up children to be well fed,
well dressed and well schooled is a huge challenge in itself. Some parents face
the additional challenge of bringing up their children and wards free of harmful
drugs, free from the scourge of aids, and free from any association with other
social maladies. Parents dread to see the day their two year old, who was
lovingly fed on imported malted food, grow up to sniff dendrite or petrol. The
environment you live in affects happiness.
Religion and culture: Unfortunately, religion is not a
word understood uniformly universally; it is multipronged and its meaning and
connotations vary from place to place and person to person. Religion, culture
and traditional values need to be carefully filtered and offered to our youth
as a positive and potent tonic. Cultural and traditional values thrust upon the
throat of our youth become bitter pills to swallow. The growing polarity of
culture between our traditional etiquettes and the hip-hop Facebook generation
of today must be taken up as an opportunity to educate our youth and not as
another crime worthy of assault and impingement. The youths who fail to
appreciate that sniffing dendrite is a crime, will find it hard to understand
when told what to wear!
A sound practice of religion and cultural values
definitely enhances the inner peace of a person. Achieving inner peace is not
always easy, faced as we are with worldly longings and worries. A higher per
capita religious attachment bodes not only well for the individuals but also
for the country and the society at large. Even hardcore atheist economists have
accepted that religion can play a positive role in economic development. Inner
peace is like amrita, the ultimate
elixir of life. However, individuals, leaders and policy makers must be able to
understand the pluralities in our society and forge ways in which together
everyone achieves more. Doing so will ensure that religion and culture will not
become flaring points leading to invasions and conflicts as in the Middle East,
but the cushion of societal cohesion as in many parts of the world.
To the five year old Syrian girl, happiness comes from her
prayers to stay safe from collateral damage of inter-faith war. When a young child raises her hand in
surrender at the sight of a photographer aim his lens at her, we know that
humanity has failed. To her happiness is not about any pillar or any domain.
When your bare survival is at stake as you hide in the basement of a bomb-ridden
butt of a building, theoretical pillars are a luxury.
Conclusion: Happiness is elusive. To some
extent happiness is like the proverbial pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The
closer we move towards it, the farther it moves - the bars are raised, efforts
are made to accomplish it at a higher level and the struggle continues. The
only thing constant about happiness is the pursuit of happiness!
