Happiness on demand?

We're fast approaching the vernal equinox and this year it happens to fall on world happiness day.  World happiness day may sound strange or trite and you may not be aware that it falls on March 20th every year (not always on vernal equinox).

 

The united nations general assembly adopted world happiness day as an annual event back in 2012. The UN speaks about happiness in terms of rights, as indeed did the american declaration of independence way back in 1776 but it's hard to know if happiness levels are getting higher or lower as we evolve  and of course these kind of human rights are not as easy to enforce as the better known civil and political rights - which are more easily defined and more clearly infringed but they are none the less important for that - maybe more so?

 

It would be nice to think we're reaching a more enlightened stage of evolution where we can seek having gross domestic happiness as the key measure of success this has actually been official policy of the government of bhutan since the 1990s and other countries including New Zealand are discussing following their lead that world happiness day falls on the vernal equinox is a bit special I feel  the sun coming back up north (for us northern-hemisphere dwellers) is a cause for celebration.

 

I'm a big believer that happiness is a choice and the more consciousness we have about that choice, the more happiness we can have available to us. Here is a happiness ritual - to do every day from now until March 20th 

- grab a notebook - put by your bed with a pen

- everynight - before you turn off the light, list 10 things that you're grateful for

- yes 10. it's a lot! but it forces you to dig deep

- and some magic happens

- it forces you to pick things that you're not at all happy about at all - and to re-frame them into something to be grateful for

- which isn't easy. but you need 10 things, so you need to do some re-framing

- which entirely changes how you feel about the thing and really helps you to feel and embody this fact - that happiness is a choice