Happiness - How happy are you?
On BBC World a few months back there was an interesting series about happiness and how it can be assessed. Unfortunately I did not manage to see the whole series, but I did like the idea of using happiness as a way of measuring of how well things are going in the world. It may seem simplistic, but it could well be highly accurate.
It would be interesting to carry out a survey country by country of the levels of happiness that exist. I think this would be a good measure of the performance of politicians too, after all, if you are happy with those leading you, you will be happy to keep them there.
The trouble is measuring levels of happiness. I suppose there are various questions that could be asked, such as ‘On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you?’ - with five being the highest and one being the lowest level of happiness, or sadness, depending on which way you look at it. Then you could ask ‘How happy are you with the politicians currently in power?’, again on a scale of 1 to 5, and, perhaps more telling, ‘How happy are you with the other political parties who are not in power at the moment?’. The, other questions could be asked to about personal and work circumstances, and the end results could be averaged, statistically analysed, by those who like this sort of thing, all with the scope of arriving at a ‘happiness’ factor or ‘feel-good’ factor.
How about testing this out? How happy are you, my good readers, on a scale of 1 to 5? Answers on a comment, and mention, if you like:
- where you live, country and place
- your age
- whether you live in a town or a city
Try to be as honest as you can.
I’ll kick off, my happiness level is around three at the moment. I live in Milan, Italy. I’m 42 and I live in a city.
More to Chew On
Italy has Grillo, Myanmar/Burma has the Buddhist Monks, and both countries have unhappy people
No, I know there is no comparison between the Italian oligarchy and the Burmese despots, but both are examples of the people being encouraged to revolt against arrogant, non-democratic leaderships. Some of the Buddhist monks who are bravely attempting to right the wrongs in their country may well end up being shot. The Burmese regime is known to be violent, and not too shy about opening fire on the unarmed, in true dictatorial fashion. And monks have died before in Burma for having previously attempted to protest against the regime.
If normally passive, pacific Buddhist Monks are stirred into action, then that must mean that there is something badly wrong. And then in Italy, we have a stand-up comedian teasing the politicians. Although the situation in Italy is nowhere near as bad as that in Burma, the fact that normally independent individuals and groups are standing up and acting in both countries says to me that people are not happy.
Will Grillo be shot? Well, people who stick their noses too deeply into certain affairs in Italy have been known to come to a sticky end, but I don’t think, although I’m not too sure, that Grillo is considered to be a real threat by the power mongers in Italy. Whereas in Burma, alas, I fear that lives may be lost.
Let’s hope that in both countries things happen peacefully. And that the true meaning of the word ‘democracy’ is restored.
Have a look here to see how beautiful Burma/Myanmar actually is.
More to Chew On
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