Happiness is a funny thing. To some people it’s what makes life worth living: to look back at your life and judge it be a happy one is to know that you have lived well. But to others happiness is a relatively trivial affair - a nice feeling to be sure, but not something around which we should plan our lives. Even those who greatly value happiness might declare it to be a wholly elusive phenomenon, something we can neither hold on to nor pursue directly.
Then there’s the portrayal of happiness in business, advertising and the media. Google the term and you’re likely to see images of people jumping in the air with joy in a pair of Nike trainers, or relaxing on a beach at sunset with a can of Coca-Cola in hand. We know that happiness doesn’t come from money or material possessions, but we are constantly told that it does. In light of this confusion and ambiguity, is there anything useful to be said about happiness and social change?
I believe there is. As I argue in my new book The Happiness Problem, to ignore happiness in the midst of our current personal and social challenges would be a huge mistake - not because we could all be happier, but because happiness is a window into the way we think about how we should live. So if we want to transform the way we are living, we need to think differently about happiness.
