Can We Really Be Happy?

Happiness is promoted widely as an ultimate state of Being worth aspiring towards. However — it is neither permanently real, nor temporary finite, and as such lends itself to be of spectacular illusion.

The good news is that humans (perhaps as the only known species) have been equipped with the ability to artificially create happiness for themselves, but how?

Synthetic Happiness

Nobody has perhaps captured this better than Dan Gilbert in his Ted talk “The surprising science of happiness ”, which is absolutely worth watching from beginning to end:

As much as we all constantly use the concept of synthetic happiness without our conscious control (to often simply manipulate ourselves into comfort during even the most undesirable circumstances), we can very much apply the same technique to:

• replace a “problem” with a “challenge” or
• change a “perception” by simply changing the “view”.

Merely a change of perception can sometimes be enough to trigger a rewrite of our mental wires and with it we could achieve quite tangible outcomes in our lives, at will, and when required.

A National Happiness Index

Happiness has become political capital. Five years in a row, Finland has topped the World’s Happiness Report now. Meanwhile the UAE has officially opened several “Customer Happiness Centers ” with an actual Minister of State for Happiness and Wellbeing as part of the National Happiness Agenda .

The pioneer of the Wellbeing Economy movement however was the country of Bhutan, which in seeing the failures of GDP as the sole indicator of development, created a Gross National Happiness index to gauge the wellbeing of its citizens.

Of course it’s one thing to know what makes people happy, but quite another to live a happy life oneself :

When I was cycling to Bhutan, I let go of the idea of ever reaching Bhutan many times, and through doing so I ensured my journey remained purposeful and enjoyable. And, when I did arrive, beautiful as Bhutan was, exhaustion and homesickness dominated. If we’re not happy along the way, then we ought to question whether it’s worth going at all. — Christopher Boyce, Honorary Research Associate at the Behavioural Science Centre, University of Stirling

Click here to read more about:

• How to manage 7 main moods;
• Happiness vs. Joy vs. Bliss; and
• How Gratefulness could be the Key to Happiness.