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Smile! It is the International day of Happiness today!

Yes, the day is beautiful and it’s supposed to be a day full of joy and smiles. International day of happiness was founded by the United Nations advisor, Jayme Illien to inspire, mobilize and advance the global happiness movement. Illien conceptualized the idea for a U.N resolution that would recognize the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental human right and a fundamental human goal. The day which was founded very recently in the year 2012 marks a new historical milestone in humankind’s ultimate quest for happiness, which dates back to the time of ancient sages and philosophers such as Buddha and religious figures like Jesus, and Prophet Muhammad all of whom theorized about the purpose and meaning of life, the definition of happiness and how to achieve it.


While Gross domestic product (GDP) of a country has always been taken as the measure of countries overall growth and development, it was only recently in 2011 that Bhutan adopted gross national happiness (GNH) instead of the GDP as their main indicator of development. Nonetheless, even if the other countries do not have GNH as the primary measure of their development, they are still ranked by the UN under the World happiness report. The report which comes after a detailed survey takes various factors ranging from economic to environmental under consideration. The latest report which was published in March 2018, ranked a total of 156 countries, of which India was ranked 133!
After multiple years of rapid growth in terms of materials, after deforesting a lot of lands to build places harboring newer technologies and after striving to achieve higher levels of GDP each year, we recently realized the need to correlate this growth with happiness and had to introduce a happiness index for the countries. And as ironic as it may sound the GDP is not even nearly related to the happiness index for most countries. It wouldn’t be wrong to say, that the ever-growing buildings can’t make us happy if it comes at the cost of cutting some nature down; and running and working to earn endlessly can’t make us happy either if it comes at the cost of some simple pleasures in life. So does that mean, stop growing and developing, stop working and struggling? The answer is no, just keep happiness away from all these other measurable parameters in life. Ideally, happiness is just a state of mind which should exist irrespective of the ifs and buts that we are surrounded by and irrespective of the circumstances that we have around us. In spiritual terms, happiness should be unconditional and unrelated to anything around us. We humans must have lived and are continuing to live so mechanically over the past many years that the UN had to actually introduce a happiness day to remind each one of us that we need to stay happy! Thought provoking isn’t it? 

Let us realize that we have a very limited and uncertain time on this planet, which will end before we even know it. Let us realize that most of the things that we are worried about right now won’t even matter in the next few years. Let us take the initiative to create an aura of happy and positive vibes around us, and encircle more and more people in it every day. Let us take the responsibility for our own happiness index and work upon it till it hits the maximum mark. Let us make every day a day of happiness and joy, irrespective of the multiple things that we are surrounded with.
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