Are We Happy? — Afghanistan Reflections

In its 2015 edition of annual “Survey of the Afghan People” The Asia Foundation posed this question to 9,586 Afghans:

“In general in your life, would you say you are very happy, somewhat happy, not very happy, or not happy at all?”

I’m not sure how I would answer that question myself, and would likely respond by asking, “About what? When? Who are you and why are you asking this question?”

But, apparently the Afghans interviewed weren’t as confused as I would have been and 74.9% of them responded that they were either “very happy” or “somewhat happy.” I’ll leave it to you to guess what the difference is between being “very happy” as opposed to “somewhat happy”, or what that actually means and why it matters.

I recently passed through Dubai and happened to catch an article on the front page of the “Gulf News” that reported that his Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai (you got to love this guy’s title) is so concerned about the happiness of his subjects that he designated six government officials as “National Happiness Officers” and sent them off to the U.S. to study happiness at some university or other. There is no emoji to express my reaction to that.

All this concern with citizen’s happiness seems to be part of an international trend to measure a nation’s well-being by gauging the state its citizens’ happiness. In the introduction to the 2016 “World Happiness Report” (yes there is such a thing) published by the U.N. it states that, “Increasingly, happiness is considered to be the proper measure of social progress and the goal of public policy” and offers up the official OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-Being. Are you ready for this?

“Subjective well-being encompasses three different aspects: cognitive evaluations of one’s life, positive emotions (joy, pride), and negative ones (pain, anger, worry). While these aspects of subjective well-being have different determinants, in all cases these determinants go well beyond people’s income and material conditions... All these aspects of subjective well-being should be measured separately to derive a more comprehensive measure of people’s quality of life and to allow a better understanding of its determinants (including people’s objective conditions). National statistical agencies should incorporate questions on subjective well-being in their standard surveys to capture people’s life evaluations, hedonic experiences and life priorities.”

Yikes!

The good news is that the 2016 report ranks Afghanistan 154th out of 157 countries on the “Happiness Scale”, just above Togo and just below Benin. This is far better than where Transparency International rates Afghanistan on its annual “Corruption Index Scale” which is 166th out of 168 countries, and which is the source of so much angst and hand wringing on the part of the international community that keeps Afghanistan afloat. According to the “Happiness Scale” the Government of Afghanistan is actually doing okay (at least better than Togo) by its citizens’ thank you and all you foreigners should just ease up on all this negative talk about corruption and focus more on the happiness the Afghan Government is producing for its citizens.

When I was a kid and whenever my Mother sensed some unhappiness in me, she would just tell me to “go outside and play.” And she was right. My happiness almost always came back. She didn’t need OECD guidelines to figure out what was wrong with me or how to fix it. I’m all grown up now (most of the time), but it’s still good advice for all of us. And, apparently the Afghans are listening when their Government tells them to just “go outside and play.”