Tannishblog

Slowly and somewhat begrudgingly, the West is finding more need to “think outside” of its own “box.” Economists have been touting gross domestic product as a yardstick of national happiness for decades, as if money alone could be a measure of personal satisfaction. But the kingdom of Bhutan is pursuing happiness a different way.

“We have to think of human well-being in broader terms. Material well-being is only one component. That doesn’t ensure that you’re at peace with your environment and in harmony with each other.”

So says Lyonpo Jigmi Thinley, Bhutan’s home minister and ex-prime minister. This idea, which economic thinkers in the west are just now attending to, is based on Buddhist doctrine. Some relate this to the more Jeffersonian philosophy of happiness:

“The Enlightenment theory of happiness was an expression of public good or the public welfare, of the contentment of the people,” said John Ralston Saul, a Canadian political philosopher. And, he added, this could not be further from “the 20th-century idea that you should smile because you’re at Disneyland.”

I find this to be self evident: happiness is subjective, after all. The chase for money, status and other ephemeral accoutrements of society can often take on a like of its own, undermining whatever basis for happiness we’ve accrued. To live in an era where messages of consumerism feed our subconscious false fears and desires, we have to work diligently to remain centered on our own values, not to get caught up in the false values of corporate entities. To live in a society which deifies wealth, we must remember that most of our material possessions are unnecessary to our emotional needs.

And now, some few Western researchers are, in a very Western style, trying to quantify this self evident truth.

But researchers have been hard pressed to develop measuring techniques that can capture this broader concept of well-being. One approach is to study how individuals perceive the daily flow of their lives, having them keep diary-like charts reflecting how various activities, from paying bills to playing softball, make them feel. A research team at Princeton is working with the Bureau of Labor Statistics to incorporate this kind of charting into its new “time use” survey, which began last year and is given to 4,000 Americans each month.

“The idea is to start with life as we experience it and then try to understand what helps people feel fulfilled and create conditions that generate that,” said Dr. Alan B. Krueger, a Princeton economist working on the survey.

For the rest of us, not involved with spending grant money, all we have to do is look into ourselves to discover happiness. If only we take the time.