Well-being expert John de Graaf says it’s time to wake up and smell…the roses.

By John de Gaaf

You may have noticed that the subject of happiness is hot right now. But the interest in happiness is not entirely new. Once upon a time, in a far-off land of green valleys and soaring mountains, a boy of 16 was crowned King — and began in a quiet way to change the world. The year was 1972 — not so long ago. The faraway land was a tiny Himalayan Kingdom called Bhutan, thought of by many as the model for Shangri-La. And the 16 year old king was Jigme Wangchuck, who, when asked what he would do to increase Bhutan’s Gross National Product, replied that, as far as he was concerned: GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT.  And Gross National Happiness would be the goal of his reign.

Kids say the darndest things!

Now if any leader, young or old, had made those remarks here in the United States, he or she would have received a few chuckles perhaps, then a collective yawn, and an exhortation to get real and get back to making money. But the people of Bhutan take their kings very seriously, and slowly over the next 38 years, they began to put a little meat on the concept of Gross National Happiness. They wanted to figure out how to measure it, how to enhance it through government and social policies, and how to educate themselves about the behaviors that lead to greater joy.

They invited leading “happiness scientists” to their once isolated land —psychologists and economists and ecologists and philosophers and sociologists and experts in health and in the creation of scientific surveys. In time, they began to measure nine domains that affect happiness:

• Psychological well-being or mental health
• Physical health
• Time or Work-life balance
• Education
• Cultural vitality and expression
• Social connection and relationships
• Environmental quality and access to nature
• Quality of government.
• Material well-being.

Some of the world’s leading happiness experts created surveys for Bhutan to use in measuring its people’s life satisfaction. And the government of Bhutan is using the results to guide its economic, social and environmental policies. (They’ve even used it to decide NOT to join the WTO!)

The happiness surveys developed for Bhutan have been used in Brazil and Canada and other countries — in cities, in universities and even in corporations.
In my neighboring city of Victoria, BC (I live in Seattle), civic organizations formed a Happiness Partnership and conducted a scientific sampling of the nine domains of happiness in their city. 

Interestingly, only 6% of Victoria residents said they thought they’d be happier if they had more possessions. Ranking their material satisfaction, they gave it a score of 92 on a scale of 100. They were far less happy with their financial security, giving it a score of only 53. But the lowest score of all was for “time balance”—a score of only 46 out of 100. According to the Victoria survey, “Stress and problems of time-balance were the most important factors in limiting well-being across the regional population.”

I would suggest that this has some economic policy implications that go against the prevailing tide. In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Roger Hickey, an organizer of the America’s Future Now conference held recently in Washington D.C., wrote:

“We must restore the kind of supercharged economic growth we had in the 1950s and 1960s” if we are to end unemployment and reduce the deficit.

But such a development would be ecological suicide. Our ecological footprint is already five times what is sustainable. If everyone in the world consumed as we do, we’d need five planets.

What we do need now is not supercharged economic growth, but an economy that is less consumptive, kinder to the earth, more local and with less of our time committed to the market, so that we have more time for our communities, for our families, for our health and to be good environmental stewards. Green, alternative technologies can help us to transition there, but they must not perpetuate a consumer lifestyle that knows no limits on a planet already stretched to the limit.

Here are some examples of the kind of policies we should promote:  

Paid family leave. Only the United States, Swaziland, Liberia and Papua New Guinea don’t guarantee at least paid maternity leave.

Paid sick days. Only a handful of desperately poor countries and the United States, don’t guaranteed paid leave when you’re sick.
  
Paid vacation time. Only the United States, Guyana, Suriname, Nepal and Burma don’t guarantee at least some paid vacation time.  

Here’s another idea: the choice of shorter work-time. (For more on this, see my last post on Talkback.) In the Netherlands and some other European countries, workers have a legal right to reduce their hours without losing their jobs.  They keep the same hourly pay, pro-rated benefits and full health care.  

Each of these policy reforms is essential to good health. Indeed, our lack of these rights is one big reason Americans have the worst health in the industrial world, despite paying twice as much as everyone else does for healthcare. If we enact these policies, we can become healthier and, ultimately, at far less cost. We will have less unemployment — we need to work less so all can work. Most Americans don’t need more stuff in their lives. But they desperately need more time, and more opportunity to work and work reasonable hours.

A politics of time is also a politics of happiness. Gallup does an annual poll, measuring levels of well-being in 140 countries. Even Forbes magazine confirmed that the United States in nowhere in the top ten. The four happiest countries are Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden. Forbes explained what they have in common. They are among the world’s most egalitarian nations and they pay the greatest attention to work-life balance.  

Now, I’m not knocking work. A good job that contributes to society and provides a living wage is central to a happy life. We need to be sure that every American has the opportunity to have such a job.

This post is an abridged version of a speech John de Graaf gave at the Northwest Progressive Institute.

About John de Graaf

JOHN DE GRAAF is a documentary filmmaker and the Executive Director of Take Back Your Time. He is the co-author of AFFLUENZA: THE ALL-CONSUMING EPIDEMIC.  His most recent film is WHAT’S THE ECONOMY FOR, ANYWAY? He teaches occasionally at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and lives in Seattle.

READERS: What would you like to see at your company to increase the Gross National Happiness Index? What policies nationwide would you support? Share your thoughts with Talkback!