Journal of Mental Health Issues and Behavior (JMHIB) ISSN 2799-1261 · Vol. 4, No. 01 (2024) · pp. 7-12
Research Paper

The spirit of happiness: the universal manifestation of life

Wasim Azam1*
  1. 1 Research Scholar Department of English Banaras Hindu University Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.
  2. * Corresponding author: Wasim Azam, wasimazam244@gmail.com
Received11 November 2023
Revised8 January 2024
Accepted16 January 2024
Published29 February 2024
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.55529/jmhib.43.1.6
LicenceCC BY 4.0
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Abstract

Background: Happiness has long been examined across philosophical, psychological, spiritual, and societal perspectives, evolving from classical debates on virtue and pleasure to its modern recognition as a measurable dimension of human wellbeing and, since 2011, a matter of international policy interest via the United Nations. Objective: To synthesize philosophical, spiritual, and empirical perspectives on happiness, and to examine global happiness trends and contributing factors as documented in the World Happiness Report series (2012–2024). Methods: This is an analytical, descriptive, and qualitative review. It draws on the World Happiness Report series, philosophical and spiritual literature on happiness, and related commentary, synthesizing survey-based national happiness data across more than 150 countries without new empirical data collection. Results: Happiness is shaped by factors including social support, health, income (with declining marginal utility), individual temperament, environmental quality, and civic engagement. Finland has ranked the world's happiest nation consecutively since 2018, while India ranked 126th in 2023 and 2024. Happiness inequality within nations has narrowed over recent decades alongside economic growth. Philosophical and spiritual traditions frame happiness variously as a scope-bound achievement tied to virtue and circumstance, or as an unconditional inner state independent of external conditions. Conclusion: Happiness is a multifaceted construct spanning philosophical, spiritual, and empirical dimensions. Understanding subjective wellbeing alongside traditional economic indicators offers valuable insight for individuals and policymakers seeking to improve quality of life globally.

Keywords: Happiness, Life, Wellbeing, Positive, World Happiness Report, Society, Mental Health.

1. INTRODUCTION

The concept of happiness is the manifestation of life. It has gained attention in various contexts, from psychological perspectives to spiritual teachings. Manifestation includes the practice of translating thoughts and ideas into the tangible realities, often focusing on setting targets and intentions to constitute an ambitious result. It is seemed as a path to align positive brooding with intentional actions to bring about favorable outcomes [1]. While some view manifestation as a tool for self-awareness and personal development, others encompass the significance of gratitude and positive attitude in cultivating happiness. Ultimately, manifesting happiness is about finding contentment and satisfaction with what one has, rather than constantly seeking more or the best of everything. It delves into the concept of happiness from various perspectives, involving philosophical, psychological, and societal viewpoints. It explores how happiness has been perceived throughout the history, from the interdependence of virtue and pleasure to the modern era where happiness is considered as a fundamental human right. The evolution of happiness touches the views of Christian philosophers that the age of enlightenment focuses on pleasure and utilitarian perspective of maximizing pleasure over pain [2]. The link between happiness and success highlights happy individuals tend to excel in various life domains, such as marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health. Happiness can be objectively measured and correlated with observable brain functions, encapsulating the significance of subjective wellbeing in individual and societal context. The global database of happiness collects research objectives on happiness, emphasizing the significance of deeming what makes people happy for individuals. The World Happiness Report is a partnership of Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the WHR’s Editorial Board. The report is produced under the editorial control of the WHR Editorial Board. The World Happiness Report outlines the state of world happiness, causing of happiness and misery. It offers a remarkable glimpse of happiness trends across the globe, highlighting insights from the 2024 report released in the month of March. From 2024, the World Happiness Report is a publication of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. The data and empirical evidence argued in the report shed light on how happiness can be measured, the variations in life contentment, and the correlation between money and happiness [3].

2. RELATED WORK

2.1 Background

The United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 65/309 Happiness: Towards a Holistic Definition of Development, inviting member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use the data to aid guide public policy around 2011. United Nations Secretary General Ban-ki-moon and Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley of Bhutan chaired the first UN High Level Meeting called Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm in which a nation adopted gross national happiness instead of gross domestic product. In this meeting, the first World Happiness Report was introduced on 1st April, 2012, showing causes of happiness and misery. The first report advocated the state of world happiness, showing different implications and considerations at the world level. The second World Happiness Report was introduced in 2013, showing mental illness, subjective wellbeing, and virtue ethics in the quest for happiness. The United Nations International Happiness Day is celebrated on 20th March every year since 2013 as it was established in 2012 [4]. The third World Happiness Report was introduced in 2015, showing healthy minds, human values, civil economy, transformation of mental health, and the geography of world happiness. The fourth World Happiness Report was introduced in 2016, stating multidimensional wellbeing, the distribution of world happiness, and sustainable evolution of happiness. The fifth World Happiness Report was introduced in 2017, stating the importance of the social foundations of happiness. The 2018 World Happiness Report focuses on the connection between happiness and migration. The 2019 report focuses on community, while the 2020 report focuses on environment, such as social, urban, and natural, involving links between happiness and sustainable evolution. The 2022 World Happiness Report focuses on possible genetic effects on the happiness of individual. The reports of 2023 and 2024 concentrate on healthy wellbeing, freedom of life, healthy income, social support, and equitable policy [5].

2.2 The State of Happiness: Factors

The World Happiness Report correlates with various life factors, dealing the quality of sustainable life. Data is accumulated from people across 150 nations. Each variable measured shows a populated-weighted average score on a scale running from 0 to 10 that is tracked over time and compared against other nations. India secures 126th rank in both reports of 2023 and 2024 [6]. The state of happiness is affected at various levels of geopolitical and socioeconomic concerns. The World Happiness Report is basically based on following variables currently as given below:

  • Gross Development Product (GDP) per capita
  • Social support
  • Healthy life expectancy
  • Generosity
  • Perception of corruption
  • Freedom to make life choices

The six variables are used to elaborate the estimated extent to which each of these sectors contribute to increasing life contentment when compared to the hypothetical nation of Dystopia, but they do not have an effect on the total score reported for each nation. There are different factors [7], contributing to the state of happiness:

  • Social relationship plays an important role in happiness, being a key term in overall wellbeing.
  • Individual temperament has a genetic element to impact on mood and how one reacts to life events.
  • People have topsy-turvy situations but tend to adapt to baseline level of happiness.
  • While financial support is correlated with happiness in poor society, it has declining marginal utility.
  • Valuing money over love can be detrimental to happiness at one stage if the condition is marginalized.
  • Environmental quality, equality, and social capital play a role in individual’s happiness.
  • Positive cognition includes attention, interpretation, and memory, concentrating on the happiest aspects of life.
  • Feeling fit and healthy is a crucial factor in the state of happiness as physical wellbeing impacts overall life contentment.
  • Good health contributes to a sense of wellbeing and positive sign of happiness.
  • Charity and voluntary deeds height the state of happiness.
  • Creativity and productivity encompass the significance of happiness at the extreme level.

2.3 Happiness Report: World Level

The report of happiness delves into the complex dynamics of happiness and life contentment across different nations and demographics. It highlights the importance of subjective wellbeing as a crucial aspect of social sciences, emphasizing the requirement to complement traditional economic measures like GDP with measures of happiness. The World Happiness Report is a report of happiness at the world level which is a publication, containing articles and rankings of national happiness, based on respondent ratings of their own lives. In the report of 2013, Denmark secured the first rank out of 85 nations while securing the first rank out of 157nations in the 2016 report [8]. In the report of 2017, Norway secured the highest position in the table. Finland secured the highest position first time in the 2018 report. Since 2018, Finland consecutively secures the highest position till now. In the reports of 2023 and 2024, Finland secures top position amongst 137nations and 143nations respectively. Afghanistan secures the last position since the 2020 Report of World Happiness. As of March 2024, Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world seven times in a row. Life contentment and happiness provide valuable insights into people’s wellbeing, showing that richer individuals and nations tend to report higher levels of happiness. Moreover, it explores the impact of important life events like marriage or divorce or happiness, showing that these events have limited long-term effects as individual tends to adapt to changes. The report touches happiness inequality, pointing out that while national average happiness levels may remain stable, inequality in happiness can minimize significantly within nations over time. For instance, happiness inequality has notable fallen in recent decades, with improvements seen in reducing gaps between demographic groups. The correlation between economic growth and reduction in happiness inequality suggests that rising income levels can contribute to greater wellbeing across society [9].

3. METHODOLOGY

The research of World Happiness Report is analytical, descriptive, and qualitative. National happiness is based on survey undertaken worldwide. The report correlates the assessment of life priority with different outcomes. The life factor variables used in the report are reflections of national-level differences in life assessments across society. The use of subjective measurement of wellbeing is meant to be a bottom-up approach which emancipates respondents to assess their own wellbeing. Each report is introduced by chapters that delve profoundly into the state of happiness, including mental depression, the objective pros of happiness, the significance of moral happiness, and the importance of ethics. The World Happiness Report is an indicator of subjective wellbeing that can be encapsulated by a survey which reports assessments of people’s happiness. There has also been an ongoing debate regarding single-item and multi-item scales as measures of life contentment. The happiness of people has been affected by education system and subjective wellbeing living style. The variables of interest used by the World Happiness Report are more appropriate for measuring national-level rather than individual-level happiness [10].

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The study provides valuable insights into the state of happiness, focusing on research findings and reports related to happiness and life contentment. British journalist [2] inscribes that the most common type of prescription medications in Finland are antipsychotic, while presenting freedom and happiness rankings in his book The Almost Nearly Perfect People. He posits the country’s high alcohol consumption, murder, and suicide rates. Despite of these issues, Finland is the happiest nation across the world in terms of life contentment and subjective wellbeing. Further, he detects that citizens of Denmark were the happiest ones but they were considered as the most satisfied ones. World database of happiness and global happiness study provide a rich understanding of happiness with its measurable factors and the global trends in happiness and life contentment. In the philosophical realm, happiness has been considered as a triangulation of scope, virtue, and responsibility, with the scope being constrained in some way, such as being dependent on good luck, fortune, or favorable circumstances. In the spiritual context, happiness is considered as an unconditional state of rapture, not dependent on persons or things, and is considered as a firm, robust, unwavering substance of rapture which can’t be touched by the variation of mortal thought. In the book In the Spirit of Happiness by the [11], the aspects of spiritual living are disciplines of change and asceticism. The monks emphasize that spiritual evolution relies on lives and salvation. The book presents the elements of a monk’s life, such as self-discipline, solitude, prayer, acts of love, and forgiveness. The spirit of happiness is a multifaceted scenario that encapsulates philosophical, spiritual, and personal growth perspectives. The World Happiness Report involves fresh insights on the state of esteemed happiness trends across various ages and generations, providing a suitable picture of happiness across the whole world. It is an appropriate valuable resource for deeming the factors that contribute to the state of happiness and wellbeing, and for informing policy decisions that can augment the quality of life around the world.

5. CONCLUSION

Manifesting happiness in life involves a combination of setting vivid intentions, aligning actions with targets, cultivating positive thinking, and embracing gratitude for the present moment and blessings in one’s life. Social assimilation, temperament, money, society, positive vibes, and health are key factors, creating a dynamic evolution of happiness, and leading to more fulfilling satisfied life. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of happiness and life contentment on a global scale, shedding lucent on the intricate relationship between life events and societal wellbeing. It underscores the evolving nature of happiness research and the importance of understanding subjective wellbeing alongside traditional economic indicators. Happiness is a positive exhilaration of emotional state characterized by vibes, such as contentment, divinity, pleasure, and peace.

Acknowledgments

The authors have no specific acknowledgments to make for this research.

Funding Information

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author Contributions Statement

Name of AuthorCMSoVaFoIRDOEViSuPFu
Wasim Azam✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓

C: Conceptualization; M: Methodology; So: Software; Va: Validation; Fo: Formal analysis; I: Investigation; R: Resources; D: Data curation; O: Writing – original draft; E: Writing – review & editing; Vi: Visualization; Su: Supervision; P: Project administration; Fu: Funding acquisition.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Informed Consent

All participants were informed about the purpose of the study, and their voluntary consent was obtained prior to data collection.

Ethical Approval

Not Applicable.

Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

References

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  2. [2] M. Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth about the Nordic Miracle. Jonathan Cape, 2014.
  3. [3] S. Deb, Led by its Youth U.S. Sinks in World Happiness Report. 2024.
  4. [4] Happiness: towards a holistic approach to development: resolution / adopted by the General Assembly." UN DAG Repository. 2017.
  5. [5] M. Hunter, The world's happiest countries for 2022. 2022.
  6. [6] K. Lee, Sustainable Development Solutions Network | World Happiness Report. 2013.
  7. [7] F. Marquez-Padilla and J. Alvarez, 'Grading happiness: what grading systems tell us about cross-country wellbeing comparisons?', Economics Bulletin, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 1138-1155, 2018.
  8. [8] P. Pullella, 'Finland is World's Happiest Country', U.S. Discontent Grows: U.N. Report." U.S. News & World Report, Mar. 2018.
  9. [9] R. Smith, 'The long slide to happiness', J. Philos. Educ., vol. 42, no. 3-4, pp. 559-573, Aug. 2008. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2008.00650.x
  10. [10] A. Swanson, how we provoked the wrath of some of the world's most perfect people. Washington Post, 2015.
  11. [11] The Monks of New Skete. In the Spirit of Happiness: A Book of Spiritual Wisdom. Hachette Book Group, 2001.

How to cite: Wasim Azam (2024). The spirit of happiness: the universal manifestation of life. Journal of Mental Health Issues and Behavior, 4(01), 7-12. https://doi.org/10.55529/jmhib.43.1.6

Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Published by HM Publishers.