What is happiness? Is it a subjective feeling or an achievable state of being? Is it permanent or a fleeting mood. Does it increase with material wealth or independent of it?
Looking at the rich nations and the happiness of people there, mere economic growth in itself seems to have not achieved all round well being. Pursuit of material wealth to the exclusion of all else seems to have impacted negatively on health and the quality of personal relationships. The modern thinking that "medicine is health care, social work is improvement of community life, police protection is safety, military poise is national security and the rat race is productive work” has proved to be a mistaken notion. There are other aspects impacting more on happiness and well being. In fact several poor countries have caught up with much richer ones in the non-income aspects of the Human Development Index, such as life expectancy and literacy. An over emphasis on the pursuit of economic growth can undermine or destroy quality of life and lead to greater unhappiness.
But leaders around the world believe that this is ‘development’ and ‘good’ for ‘the country’. I don't know ‘who’ the country is meant to be and for "whom" all this happens to be good for. Many less wealthy countries do well in happiness surveys because cultural priority is placed on family and friends, on social capital rather than financial capital, on social equity rather than corporate power. When decisions are taken to invest heavily in education and health as well as in self sustaining communities, local economies and the environment, happiness is boosted.
Happiness actually means being content, peaceful, without any conflict within.
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