Happiness incessantly adds a lot to our personal being so much so that a day has been exclusively red lettered for this emotion. International Day of Happiness has been given due importance and is celebrated worldwide to spread positivity and a message that every nation should prioritize the happiness of its citizens. The Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that happiness is the only thing humans seek in and of itself – all our other wants and desires ultimately contribute to our happiness, while happiness itself is the end goal. And in the 18th and 19th centuries, utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill developed an ethical theory that saw virtuous acts as those which maximize happiness and decrease suffering. It has been seen as a grounding input to every index and aims at personal, regional, state, national and international level.
History
History of the idea of celebrating happiness dates back to 2011 when James Illion introduced the idea to the United Nations and adding to the bundle he found the United Nations New Economic Paradigm project ‘Happytalism’. Happitalism propagated the need to shift the momentum of economic growth from Capitalism to Happytalism. 20th March was marked as the day of International Day of Happiness initially by passing a resolution dated 12th July 2012 vide A/RES/66/281 in the United Nations General Assembly. This resolution was first initiated by Bhutan when they started stressing more on the importance of being happy and seeing it from the macroscopic point of view of a nation over the national income since the early 1970s and thus proposed to substitute Gross National Product with Gross National Happiness. The final resolution passed in 2012 read as
"The General Assembly,[…] Conscious that the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal,[…] Recognizing also the need for a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes sustainable development, poverty eradication, happiness and the well-being of all peoples, Decides to proclaim 20 March the International Day of Happiness, Invites all Member States, organizations of the United Nations system and other international and regional organizations, as well as civil society, including non-governmental organizations and individuals, to observe the International Day of Happiness in an appropriate manner, including through education and public awareness-raising activities[…]"
- United Nations General Assembly
2021 Status
How has been the report of this year different from the year 2021? This year the report has also incorporated the status of mental health, social connections people had in their life and work space, and has incorporated the implication people had while sustaining through life; in these unprecedented times of global pandemic Covid-19. The report released by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network in 2021 reveals that the covid pandemic has been the most challenging time for mankind and it was during this time that the general happiness of people was ruthlessly washed away. In the beginning people in the lockdown did get time to rejuvenate and heal through their worn shades but all that lasted for a moment and soon the clouds of gloominess doomed in. The rankboard still placed Finland at the top for being the happiest country in the world for the fourth time in a row. Afghanistan was ranked as the least happiest nation. India ranked up 139 out of 149 countries in the said report in juxtaposition to rank 144 out of 156 countries. Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, and the Netherlands followed in the second, third, fourth and fifth positions, respectively. Besides that, when it comes to India’s neighbouring countries, Pakistan ranked 105th, China 84th, Sri Lanka 129th and Bangladesh 101st out of total countries in the participation index. This also brings into light the participation of countries in the index which is a different stat over the years. For instance, last year's scales were calculated out of 156 countries while this year, it has been declared out of 149 countries. This brings into question Methods and Philosophy of the evaluation.
Methods and Evaluation
To rank the countries on the scale of happiness, National Representatives from each country come forward every year to participate in the index. They are made to imagine a ladder to be their best possible life at score 10 and the worst possible at zero. They are then asked to scale their current lifestyle on the scale of 1 to 10 for various indicators which depict their living factors. This method is coined as Cantril ladder survey. Also whatever life factors are taken into account as an indicator to their current lifestyle are seen as a reflective determinant that explains national level differences across life evaluation. The determinants which are expected to receive a very subjective response are seen to be a bottom-up approach that offers the respondents their own good space to respond and get more informed about their well being. There happens to be an analysis taking into consideration economical, psychological and social aspects.
There have been differences found in the method and manner of evaluation and experience by some keen critiques (Kushlev, Kostadin). For instance in 2018 Colombia scaled 37th in rank in 2018s World Happiness Report but topped to first position when it comes to daily emotional experience as per Gallop’s Positive Experience Index. Overall it derives happiness is a very subjective phenomena. A child is happy in selling one more balloon and the other child is happy in purchasing that balloon. The answer depends on how one defines happiness. If you see happiness as how someone perceives their life, then Finnish will be the most happiest person and if you feel like happiness is defined by how people see their life experiences and emotions such as laughter, rejoicing, smiling, rejuvenating and being treated with respect each day then the happiest people on earth are the Latin Americans.
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Author
Antisha Nigam
Antisha will never remain the same person you met yesterday. She passionately struggles for the answers to ‘why’ rather than settling like the earlier times with ‘what’ and ‘how’. One could always reach out to her for a ceaseless conversation over platter of food, finance, dramas of everyday life with a large cup of hot poetries
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