How to be Happy

Life comes with many big questions. What's so hard about making the trains run on time? Am I too old to start playing Pokemon Go? What exactly is a Bieber? The biggest question of all, however - in fact, the one that other questions boil down to - is 'what will make me happy?'.

Trying to decide whether to quit your job? Will it make me happy? Want to know whether you should change your internet provider? Will it make me happy? It doesn't matter how large or how small the question is – from 'do you take this woman...' to 'do you want fries with that...' – the only thing that matters is, ultimately, 'will it make me happy?'.

The question of happiness is so important that the nation of Bhutan decided to replace all of their economic measures with a national happiness measure. Rather than focussing on Gross Domestic Product, as other nations did, they wished to focus on the actual happiness of their citizens. The fact that doing so would shoot them from being one of the least developed countries in the world to one of the most developed is, I'm sure, pure coincidence. None-the-less, it is abundantly clear that, from an individual standpoint, we are much more concerned with whether we can afford to buy dinner tonight than whether our country makes a lot of money from investment banking. Perhaps someone should tell the politicians this.

One minor drawback is that no-one knows the causes of happiness, or even how to measure it. Sure, if you tickle someone you can make them smile, but does mean they're happier than if they are eating cheesecake (depends on the cheesecake, depends on the tickler), and will that happiness last if they are sitting on a deck chair watching their house burn to the ground?

A number of great minds have tried to address the problem of happiness, with varying degrees of success. None have come up with definitive answers, but a number of common themes have emerged. Money, for instance, doesn't make you happy, although we would all love the chance to prove it. Being poor, on the other hand, definitely makes you miserable. Perhaps having money, or at least being able to afford to eat, makes you a little bit happy.

Intelligence provably makes you unhappy, which comes as a great surprise to those of us who have sought to better ourselves intellectually. Apparently, intelligence brings with it an understanding of the could-have-beens, the if-onlys, the come-what-mays. If life is a mountain range, with peaks and troughs of success and failure, the ignorant see only the slope around them and are happy when they reach the top; the intelligent see the distant peaks and weep that they may never reach them. They cannot be happy with anything but the best possible situation, whilst those of lesser intellect will settle for utter contentment on a smaller hill (the fools).

The most common driver for happiness, however, is friends, family and a wide social circle. Misery may love company, but pleasure despises solitude. I sat on a terrace earlier, staring out across a mountain vista, and sighing with contentment. How different would it been if I were the last man on earth, staring at a world reclaimed by nature? Had I not known I would be joined, in time, by friends, and chatter, and a cool glass of wine, the beauty of the moment would have been hollow.

Perhaps this is the meaning of life, once we have got past the basic needs of heat, food and oxygen. Once we know we will not starve, all we need is a simple pleasure and others to share it with.

I do not know. I only know that right now, I am happy.

I hope you are too. Wherever you are.