Ensuring Happiness
(Vinod Anand)

The societies sought and ensured happiness through seeking and ensuring safety, security and by developing mutualisms. Living in community cultivating and pursuing highest virtues of civilization, people attempted to live in harmony and happiness. Empowered with the superbly evolved mind, we could not live in happiness without searching for truth, in order to be in oneness with truth. We built up an environment of learning, of understanding, educating, analyzing and of reasoning, all necessary for creating joy and reaping happiness; if human intellectualization is a cosmic quest, happiness too is a cosmic quest. Thus civilization’s happiness is to be in tune with the cosmic order.

Religion, culture and spirituality evolved to promote our internal integrity. All these features of the evolving human civilization were vital to keep happiness alive, evergreen and life- enhancing. Humans sought happiness also through developing and evolving many institutions like those of marriage, family, schools and universities to multiply and enhance happiness through promotion of selflessness, unity, learning, peace, tranquility, humility and intellectualization.

Development of art, philosophy and cosmology emerged as an inexhaustible source of happiness. Happiness sought new dimensions for expression. And conditioned by happiness, our scholars evolved even more illuminating forms of art and philosophy. Art forms of healthy recreation — cinema, music, poetry and painting, for instance—led to substantial generation of happiness for all. Creativity is an inexhaustible source of happiness that is rooted in positive expression. The higher the form of creativity, the more intense the joy. With creativity one can beautifully get linked with the past and happiness can be sourced even from bygone times for happiness is something that is dynamic; it travels across ages.

Creative achievements and glory of the past trigger happiness in the present. A happy present helps create happy futures, the sweetest outcome of an intense and sensitive civilization, infusing it with deepest meaning. Our education, art, creativity, philosophy, society, cultures, all must try to cultivate beauty. Beauty is a dominant source of joy. The more intensive the beauty the greater the well-being of human-beings for it enhances life both without and within. Beauty is the need of the soul; fork is a source of joy. There can be no greater cosmetic for beauty than happiness.

Without beauty we shrink, as Skolimowski would say — we would simply wither away. Bhutan, a small country nestled in the majestic Himalayas spreads the grandeur of Himalayan beauty by going beyond Gross National Product and rooting for Gross National Happiness. The whole world must learn from Bhutan how to nurture and cultivate happiness. What should be the motto of civilization? It must be ‘Happyism’. Its pursuit must be the central theme of every concept, perspective, project, art, every philosophy, plan, policy, law and governance. Happyism would help welcome peace and beauty in a civilization. A happy civilization is a highly creative, vibrant, life- enhancing and true civilization. Happyism would serve as the foundation of a sustainable and content civilization.

Author's Bio: 

VINOD K.ANAND: A BRIEF PROFILE

Born in 1939, and holding Master’s Degree both in Mathematics (1959) and Economics (1961), and Doctorate Degree in Economics (1970), Dr. Vinod K.Anand has about forty five years of teaching, research, and project work experience in Economic Theory (both micro and macro), Quantitative Economics, Public Economics, New Political Economy, and Development Economics with a special focus on economic and social provisions revolving around poverty, inequality, and unemployment issues, and also on informal sector studies. His last assignment was at the National University of Lesotho (Southern Africa) from 2006 to 2008. Prior to that he was placed as Professor and Head of the Department of Economics at the University of North-West in the Republic of South Africa, and University of Allahabad in India, Professor at the National University of Lesotho, Associate Professor at the University of Botswana, Gaborone in Botswana, and at Gezira University in Wad Medani, Sudan, Head, Department of Arts and Social Sciences, Yola in Nigeria, Principal Lecturer in Economics at Maiduguri University in Nigeria, and as Lecturer at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Nigeria. Professor Anand has by now published more than 80 research papers in standard academic journals, authored 11 books, supervised a number of doctoral theses, was examiner for more than twenty Ph.D. theses, and has wide consultancy experience both in India and abroad, essentially in the African continent. This includes holding the position of Primary Researcher, Principal Consultant etc. in a number of Research Projects sponsored and funded by Universities, Governments, and International Bodies like, USAID, IDRC, and AERC. His publications include a variety of themes revolving around Economic Theory, New Political Economy, Quantitative Economics, Development Economics, and Informal Sector Studies. His consultancy assignments in India, Nigeria, Sudan, Botswana, and the Republic of South Africa include Non-Directory Enterprises in Allahabad, India, Small Scale Enterprises in the Northern States of Nigeria, The Absolute Poverty Line in Sudan, The Small Scale Enterprises in Wad Medani, Sudan, Micro and Small Scale Enterprises in Botswana, The Place of Non-Formal Micro-Enterprises in Botswana, Resettlement of a Squatter Community in the Vryburg District of North West Province in the Republic of South Africa, Trade and Investment Development Programme for Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises: Support for NTSIKA in the Republic of South Africa, and Development of the Manufacturing Sector in the Republic of South Africa’s North West Province: An Approach Based on Firm Level Surveys. Professor Anand has also extensively participated in a number of conferences, offered many seminars, participated in a number of workshops, and delivered a variety of Refresher Lectures at different venues both in India and abroad. Dr. Anand was placed at the prestigious Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla in the State Himachal Pradesh, India as a Fellow from 2001 to 2003, and had completed a theoretical and qualitative research project/monograph on the Employment Profile of Micro Enterprises in the State of Himachal Pradseh, India.