Gross National Happiness

The former King of Bhutan decided there must be a better way to measure a society's real success than Gross National Product (GNP). So, in 1972, Jigme Singye Wangchuck coined the term Gross National Happiness (GNH). GNH was his attempt to approach a country's well being from a more holistic perspective, one that balances both material and spiritual development. Since he was king at the time, he decided to use GNH as the guiding principle for Bhutan's overall planning process.

The king took into account four aspects of GNH -- economic, cultural, environmental, and governmental. Specifically he looked at:

1) Sustainable development

2) Preservation and promotion of cultural values

3) Conservation of the natural environment

4) Establishment of good governance

While this is not the place to enumerate the specifics of each of the four components, it is easy to see that this approach to GNH is much more sophisticated and comprehensive than merely counting how much money is spent in any given period, as is done with GNP or Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The underlying value stressed by GNH is that the overall well being of citizens is more important than merely increasing their rates of consumption. In other words, you can consume a shitload of products, services, and resources (i.e. spend a whole lot of money) and still not be truly happy. Furthermore, short term consumption, which may be fun in the moment, can lead to long term unhappiness, especially if that consumption is based upon unsustainable development, greed and selfishness, polluting the environment, and  corrupt government!

As you may have already guessed, though, GNH cannot be measured directly. Neither can you hook someone up to a Happy Meter or a Well Being Monitor to find out exactly how their life is going. What you can do, however, is measure those factors that in aggregate supposedly produce GNH. Med Yones, President of the International Institute of Management, has identified seven of those factors. They are:

1) Economic Wellness

2) Environmental Wellness

3) Physical Wellness

4) Mental Wellness

5) Workplace Wellness

6) Social Wellness

7) Political Wellness

Here are a few of the measurable components that make up each factor. 

1) Economic wellness is more than just GNP or average per capita income. It includes the overall debt of citizens, the ratio of prices to income levels, and the income distribution throughout the country. So, when the middle class continues to shrink and there is a bigger and bigger gap between the rich and the poor, like we have in the good ole US of A today, we are not exactly the paragons of economic wellness!

2) Environmental wellness is made up of simple measures like pollution, noise, and the safety of both human and other life forms. Trash the environment in the name of progress and environmental wellness goes into the crapper, too.

3) Physical wellness has to do with issues surrounding disease rates, longevity, use of prescription medication, physical capacity, etc. It's hard to be happy if you and/or the people around you are sick all the time.

4) Mental wellness, like physical wellness, uses direct surveys of citizens, as well as the overall use in the society of anti-depressants, and the rise and fall of the numbers of patients in psychotherapy as measurable components. Suffering on a mental level, like physical suffering reduces happiness greatly.

5) Workplace wellness is measured by employees self-reports about their happiness in the workplace as well as by unemployment rates, job changes, and the number and type of lawsuits filed against employers. Since during the majority of our lives we spend more time working than doing any other single activity, if we're not happy at work, we're just not very happy!

6) Social wellness looks at discrimination, divorce rates, crime rates, and once again lawsuits, as well as survey results. Even if these things don't look like they impact you directly they have a hidden and powerful impact upon both society and your individual quality of life.

7) Political wellness factors in the degree of individual freedom citizens have, the number of foreign conflicts the nation is involved in, the degree of local democracy, and citizen participation in the community.

So, what does all this talk of GNH and its component factors have to do with you? First, the same factors that make for a happy society or culture make for happy individuals. Mind these seven aspects of your own life, and you will experience greater wellness and higher levels of happiness. Secondly, thinking of the success of our communities and of our nation from the more holistic perspective of GHP, rather than from the overly simplistic measurements of GNP or GDP,  helps us decide who we want to vote for, who we want in leadership positions, and not just how they will vote on specific special interests, but how they will contribute to our overall happiness, both as individuals and as a nation. 

Gross National Happiness is one of the most useful concepts out there when it comes to happiness. It doesn't take into account everything, or really solve anything, but it does, as Jigme Singye Wangchuck hoped, help us create both a good life and a good society.