The world celebrates happiness today.
If that made you smile and feel happy, good! Spread happiness through smiles and acts of kindness – you will certainly make someone happy.
The observance of International Happiness Day goes beyond smiles and fleeting happy moments. Happiness is a serious endeavor. It is “a most essential fundamental need of human beings.”
It is backed by a United Nations Resolution and an annual World Happiness Report which documents the progress of the science of measuring happiness to guide policy makers to make people’s happiness the goal of policies.
The United Nations passed UN Resolution 66/281on July 12, 2012 designating every March 20 of the year as International Happiness Day. It’s a day that recognizes the importance of happiness in people’s lives, and the right of every individual to pursue happiness.
Bhutan, a landlocked country in the Himalayas (2020 population, 771,612), had presented the resolution to the UN, to spread happiness which the country has used as its measurement of progress. In the seventies, Bhutan had adopted the goal of Gross National Happiness (GNH) or Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH) instead of Gross National Product GNP), using an index to measure the people’s happiness and well-being.
In the World Happiness Report 2019, Bhutan is ranked 95th happiest country out of 156 countries, and the top happiest country in the whole of Asia.
This year, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world for the fifth consecutive year. Second is Denmark, followed by Iceland, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
The list comes from the World Happiness Report which ranks happiness in over 150 countries. The 15 other countries in the list of the happiest countries are: Luxembourg; Sweden; Norway; Israel; New Zealand; Austria; Australia; Ireland; Germany; Canada; United States; United Kingdom; Czech Republic; Belgium; and France.
The World Happiness Report which documents the science of happiness, also observed a unique situation related to doing a kind acts (which make people happy) amid the pandemic.
“This year’s report found remarkable worldwide growth in all three acts of kindness monitored in the Gallup World Poll. “Helping strangers, volunteering and donations in 2021 were strongly up in every part of the world, reaching levels almost 25 percent above their pre-pandemic prevalence,” says John Helliwell, professor at the University of British Columbia and the editor of the World Happiness Report.
This year’s theme for International Happiness Day is: Keep Calm, Stay Wise, Be Kind.
“Keeping cool and calm in every situation is the key to satisfaction and happiness; In tough circumstances, wise steps lead to success; and, Be kind to others in their needs, mistakes and errors.”
Here are some ways to celebrate International Happiness Day: Focus on gratitude, surround yourself with positivity; do a kind act.