Measuring happiness 😊
Several months ago many of you sent me emails to thank me when I shared some thoughts on happiness, bliss, and joy and introduced Sadhguru's Inner engineering.
I can only feel encouraged to share more today.
In a recent conversation, a dear friend mentioned Bhutan to me. Have you heard of it? It’s been on the list of places I want to visit for a while!
Bhutan is a small kingdom locked between China, India, and Nepal. Small, secretive, and highly controlled, Bhutan is one the last Buddhist countries, and the only country that has implemented a happiness index: the “Gross National Happiness index” or “GNH”. GNH is an attempt to live in a way that's holistic, not restricted to merely measuring economics like the gross domestic product, or GDP.
When Bhutan's prime minister introduced GNH to a United Nations forum as a paradigm for alternative development in 1998, it turned heads and spawned a global industry in happiness. Thinktanks dissected it, and governments grappling with improving social policies took a serious look.
“A Compass toward a Just and Harmonious Society”, the title of the last Bhutan Gross National Happiness survey, in 2015, sums up what the country believes its experiment can provide. The findings showed that 8 percent of the people were “deeply happy,” 35 percent identified as “extensively happy,” and 47.9 percent registered as “narrowly happy”. If those numbers are anything to go by, Bhutan would actually be a ringing success.
Yet, last year when the United Nations released a report ranking countries by happiness, Bhutan was nowhere near the top. Norway took the crown. The U.S. ranked 14th. Beautiful Bhutan came 97th.
Can we measure happiness? Probably as the experiment continues.
What is sure is that happiness can be found in plenty of things that can make our day. Things that make us smile, giggle, or give us a sense of fun and playfulness, showing us that we are alive.
Those little things that make us say, “Coooool.” Simple things that make our day.
So, let me bring you a couple of little nuggets of happiness and be playful here. I am sure they will give you the same smile reading them, as I had writing them for you 😊
So how about….
When you get the milk-to-cereal ratio just right
When you are awkwardly standing by yourself with a full cafeteria tray of food and then suddenly spot your friend waving at you
Being the first table to get called up for the dinner buffet at a wedding
When someone lands on the hotel you just built in Monopoly
Hitting a bunch of green lights in a row
Tripping and realising no one saw you
Taking your bra off after wearing it for hours ( for you ladies 😊)
Waking up before your alarm clock and realising you still have plenty of time to snooze
When the socks in the freshly cleaned laundry all match up perfectly
When there is still time left in the parking meter when you pull up
Using all the different shampoos and soaps in someone else’s shower
When the vending machine gives you two things instead of one
Licking the batter off the spatula/bowl/whisk (for the foodies)
Using a hotel lobby bathroom when you are out walking around
The sound of scissors cutting construction paper
Being the first person into a really crowded movie theatre and getting the prime seats
Waiters and waitresses who bring free refills without asking
High-fiving babies
The Five-Second Rule (I recently taught it to my 3-year-old niece. Magical!)
When the thing you were going to buy is already on sale
Do any of those resonate as happy moments? Most make me smile!
Maybe build your own list
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QUESTION…
What is the one thing that made you smile or gave you joy today?