We learn that life is not easy. Some people might seem to be living unhappy lives, but hardly anyone would choose to live an unhappy life. Everyone wants to live a good and happy life.

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Can we ever define what a good and happy life should be for others?

Some people seriously believe than we can define happiness for others.

Methods of Measuring Happiness

Does happiness come from health, money, beauty, fame, recognition, job satisfaction?

The ancient Greeks had the concept of eudaemonia, translated as happiness. Aristotle, Thomas Jefferson and countless others have talked about this concept of happiness.

Professor Martin Seligman, director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania is a great modern expert on this topic.

In 1972, King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, the former King of Bhutan formulated the concept of “Gross National Happiness” to quantify how happiness can be measured and how the happiness of the people should be goal of the state rather than gross national production.

Israeli born Emeritus professor and Nobel laureate, Daniel Kahneman studies Hedonic psychology to understand what are feelings of pleasure and pain, of interest and boredom, of joy and sorrow, and of satisfaction and dissatisfaction from the biological to the societal dimensions, that cause suffering and enjoyment?

Another method is to measure the Economic Wellness, Environmental Wellness, Physical Wellness, Mental Wellness, Workplace Wellness, Social Wellness, Political Wellness of a people as developed by Med Yones, the President of International Institute of Management.

Significantly, the spiritual dimension is absent from this scale. We can encounter soulful, generous and happy people in countries at the bottom of the list. Meeting them makes you happy instantly. Strangely, we may even run into many grumpy, aggressive, and selfish people, on or off psychiatric medication, in countries at the top of the list, who often leave you unhappier.