Over the stretch of time, the most popular methods by which man has searched for happiness are turning to material satisfaction or searching for God, or that which most people have come to in search for answers during times when questions get to be overwhelming. I’m not sure by whose construct it was that material satisfaction became a polar opposite of God.

On the other hand, there are those who have come up with an organized method by which to scientifically measure happiness. They call it Gross National Happiness (GNH), a different yardstick altogether from Gross National Product (GNP). GNH is an attempt to define quality of life, an intangible concept that cannot be measured like standard of living can. Standard of living is a measurement of economic welfare.

Quality of life is said to have two components: physical and psychological. The physical will entail health, diet, and protection against pain and disease. The psychological aspect means stress, worry, pleasure, and other negative or positive emotions.

Quality of life rests on the benchmark of wellbeing, which, in turn, has been measured as happiness or satisfaction with life. However, wellbeing entails more than living ‘the good life.’ It has also come to suggest having a meaningful and worthwhile life.

By and large, happiness has come to mean, in the modern world, as the confluence of wellbeing and satisfaction.

Gross National Happiness (GNH) comes with a survey that has 7 wellness and satisfaction metrics: economic, environmental, physical, mental, workplace, social, and political. The GNH value is proposed to be an index function of the total average per capita of these measures.

In yet another research by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and based on global surveys, the findings reveal “a clear positive link” between wealth and “subjective well-being”. The results show that the facts about income and happiness are really simpler to correlate. The three trends that emerged are: rich people are happier than poor people, richer countries are happier than poor countries, and as countries get richer, they tend to be happier.

All these efforts only to go back to the question: “Can you be happy when you’re poor?”

Of course, that question is highly debatable. I’ll keep my answer to that, to myself, in my little corner of the world.

Earlier today, I received a chain email that boasts to have been voted as ‘Best Email of the Year.’ It contained the following pictures and texts:

If you think you are unhappy, look at them.

If you think your salary is low, how about her?

If you think you don’t have many friends...

If you think study is a burden, how about her?

When you feel like giving up, think of this man.

If you think you suffer in life, do you suffer as much as he does?

If you complain about your transport system, how about them?

If your society is unfair to you, how about her?

Enjoy life how it is and as it comes. Things are worse for others and a lot better for us. There are many things in your life that will catch your eye but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those.