I recently bought and devoured a book called The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. But you won’t get me admitting that in public.
There is something just too risible about a grown woman seeking the path to nirvana on Amazon.com. How much more risible when governments set out to measure the national nirvana rating – and even pay government officials based on the bliss factor.
Happiness has been official government policy in China for a while. Having done the gross domestic product thing, Beijing is now trying to hit emotional highs to match the economic ones. Numerous cities have set up a “happiness index” based on everything from the number of pollution particles in the air to subjective factors for measuring municipal ecstasy. Sometimes government officials are even denied promotions if the citizenry is not gleeful enough.