Why should I be happy?

I find it quite telling that the elite concern for our happiness coincides with a period of economic crisis when our material living standards are looking like they might get worse. The one thing they justify their happiness intervention with is the assertion that increasing material wealth doesn’t make people happier. Lots of things can influence how happy or sad we are feeling day to day but that’s no reason to attempt to ‘de-materialise’ society by trying to substitute ‘other’ measures for what a society should aim at. The other problem I have is that the happiness-mongers invade our private sphere with cod psychology. Making and getting more stuff should be the proper, public aim of government. What’s wrong with them?

Happiness is not a measurable statistic. Life is the great journey it is because it an inseparable mix of both happiness and sadness, and all range of emotion in between. People are driven to progress in both times of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The government has the job of focusing on developing opportunities for its citizens, so that they can think for themselves and find happiness that is individual and specific to them. The development of economic opportunity is a good thing. It is not mutually exclusive from happiness, but rather the availability of opportunity for education, for growth and for social stability drives people to find greater satisfaction in their lives.

The action for happiness is like a huge pacifier/dummy that the government want us all to suck on, to soothe, to calm…to pacify. Just like a dummy, it is artificial and devoid of nutritious value.

Excellent video. Happiness is so overrated and so are existential crises!

This film shows that you just have to scratch the surface of the blindlingly obvious statement - money can't buy you happiness and you realise that the happiness agenda around today is not about providing a rich life for all so we can then make choices about what makes us personally happy but quite the opposite. Action for Happiness, our governments with their happiness and well being indexes are asking us to feel content about having less. A poor excuse for not believing we can have more and it also sadly fits with the idea that we need psychological help and not resources to live happy lives. And anyway I don't like the idea of being content, where's the progress in that?

I'm certainly not richer than 10 years ago, but I'm definitely happier. And as Daniel Ben-Ami says, it's impossible to be 12 out of 10 happy, which is me if we go by Action for Happiness' scale!
The government interfere way too much in our lives as it is; nobody, especially the government, has the right to tell me, or anyone else how to be happy.
A very good report by WORLDbytes, I really like the way Luke questions and argues with Mark Williamson throughout his interview.

economic growth it does help people having better lives in terms that all kind of entertainment and leisure centres will build up. One good point of the argument was that boroughs of London will be able to build up mental health support centres for encouraging people to deal with a difficult situations of their lives and move on with a positive way of thinking , instead of been sat there all miserable. From the other hand humanity is becoming more and more about materialism (everyone wants the new i-phone for instance). It might makes our lives more comfortable yet our individual happiness should matter the most. Been happy with what we have got does gives the benefit of having better relationships, be free-consumerism and materialism and focus on our personal wellbeing. Economic growth is important and benefits humanity as a whole but individual/mental growth counts the most and governments should stop promoting new life styles because it makes us want the ‘new’ lifestyle so we will feel more acceptable from our society and when we can’t get it we think that’s is something ‘wrong’ with ourselves so we end up been all stressed out and anxious and sad of what we don’t have. Of course we can not measure happiness what makes me happy doesn't mean will make you happy as well.

A very good report by WORLDbytes. Mr Williamson effectively says that we should be more accepting of the situation we find ourselves in.
Now is that happiness or is that simply contentedness?
Throughout history we have seen that it’s the discontented in society that have striven for social change. Change and innovation in many things in life stems from a dissatisfaction with what is currently on offer. Does this then mean that by promoting contentedness do we not seek to change anything? Are they to tell us that Britain is a perfect society?
Radical social change is not something the government nor the elite desire. Of course why would they want to jeopardize and compromise on their wealth and power in this country? And at the same time have the audacity to tell ordinary people that they should diverge away from material wealth in a society that is intrinsically materialistic. The notion that this happiness index agenda is developed to foster a happier society is truly naïve and shows how out of touch this current government really is. First they engage in a rampage of cuts to our social care, services and education and then want to measure how happy we are about it? Ha. What I think is even more worrying is the fact that they introduce it in the first place. It all sounds a bit too Big Brother like to me. Is happiness even measurable? I think not.