Seeking Happiness at Middle-Age

I am 48 years old and I am in the unhappiest part of my life. At least that’s what the rapidly-emerging science of happiness says should be the case. Wellbeing, or “happiness” science is pushing its way from the halls of academia into the houses of legislators. The Happiness Initiative is a citizen action project designed to help individuals, organizations and policy makers make this happen.

On July 19th, 2011, the United Nations called on governments to measure happiness, or wellbeing, rather than just Gross Domestic Product (GDP) “with a view to guide public policy.” Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize winner and sometimes called the “grandfather” of wellbeing science, agrees. He suggests that data about subjective wellbeing is exactly what policy makers today need. It is no doubt clear to readers of this blog that GDP, which measures “everything…except that which makes life worthwhile,” (Bobby Kennedy) is not a sufficient measure for the wellbeing of a nation. But exactly how to measure happiness to influence policy may be a little less clear.

That’s where the Happiness Initiative comes in. For the last year and a half, I have been working on a small team dedicated to supplying Americans a way to transform our standard metric for governments, businesses and individuals from GDP, profit and wealth to happiness. We dubbed the project “the Happiness Initiative,” based it on the model Bhutan developed to increase its “Gross National Happiness,” and built it to be easily replicated and ultimately scalable. The project encompasses a survey paired with objective metrics, town meetings, policies and projects and happiness reports.

The survey was developed by team scientists at San Francisco State University donating hundreds of hours to the task. The lead scientist, Dr. Ryan Howell, says that, “When you take into account both time efficiency and comprehensiveness, I firmly believe this is the best wellbeing survey out there anywhere. Individuals, organizations, academic institutions and governments can all benefit from using this survey.” It measures affect (how you feel) and satisfaction with life, but goes beyond that to measure the conditions of happiness, or what really makes for wellbeing. These are the ten domains of happiness: Material wellbeing, Governance, Environment, Community, Culture, Education, Health, Psychology, Time-Balance and Work Experience. Over 10,000 people have taken the survey, with people from every state. Cities conducting a happiness initiative include Seattle, Washington, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Nevada City, California and others.

On November 17th, we issued the very first The Happiness Report Card for the Seattle area. It was no surprise that people my age scored low. It was a huge surprise that people 19-25 scored even lower. The science says we start out life happy, and go on a slow slide down until our middle age, then travel upwards until we reach old age, when we are as happy as babes. So young people should be pretty happy. They are not.

But then, if we believe that happiness is not just a personal decision, and that indeed we need the conditions of happiness- an economy that gives us secure and meaningful jobs so we can meet our needs and we don’t feel one step away from homelessness or choices between heath care and heat, an environment that will not poison us, a community that provides opportunities for creativity, love and real connection to each other – then it makes sense that the youth of today are not “happy.” It also makes sense that those of us no longer in our youth but struggling through these times are not happy.

Science says I will get happier in two years. But I am not leaving it to science. Instead, I work on the Happiness Initiative to create and provide a solution for anyone to expand our understanding of wellbeing, and to connect individual and community wellbeing to policy so that someday, as Thomas Jefferson put it “happiness is the sole purpose of government.”

The project, including the survey, a downloadable toolkit, and the first report can be found online at www.happycounts.org