{"id":8399,"date":"2011-04-21T13:57:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T13:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arliemediadesign.com\/?p=8399"},"modified":"2025-04-01T07:42:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T07:42:01","slug":"happiness-is-a-political-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/happiness-is-a-political-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Happiness is a Political Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arliemediadesign.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/action-for-happiness.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13383\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Action for Happiness&#8217; 10 Keys for Happier Living<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the last 60 years our incomes have increased substantially but surveys show our happiness has not increased at all. This \u201cmovement for positive social change\u201d seeks to change that by focusing policy on happiness rather than just increasing GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionforhappiness.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Action for Happiness<\/a>&nbsp;details 10 actions to take for a happier life. These include doing things for others (\u201cfeel good by doing good\u201d), connecting with people, being active and more. The launch received huge amounts of media attention but there has been some scepticism, especially from those who think actions like this divert from the key political issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, running a company called Happy, I\u2019m going to be pretty much in favour of a movement for happiness. Indeed the aim of Happy Ltd is to change the way people work in the UK to create happy workplaces and happier lives. One question I asked at the launch was, \u201chow would your workplace be different if the focus of your organisation was on making people feel good?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is based on the belief that people work best when they feel good about themselves, a statement that most people agree with. I believe that those organisations that do make this their focus are not only happier, but more effective. Imagine what work would be like if people were valued and given freedom within clear guidelines. If there was a no blame culture. If people were recruited and promoted based on their attitude and support for others. And, best of all, if people could actually choose their managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I see that as pretty radical change. Indeed I would argue that one of the problems with political movements in the past is their failure to take account of people\u2019s feelings and needs. Many years ago I was&nbsp;<a href=\"\/thirty-years-of-happiness\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">part of an ambitious project to create a radical, campaigning Sunday newspaper<\/a>. We had great ideals of what we wanted to change but created a terrible workplace and, as a result, also created a pretty poor product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A real focus on happiness is not politically neutral. We know that the most happy societies are the most equal. That is why Scandinavian countries tend to come top of international happiness surveys. A recent survey found only 6% of the Chinese population was happy in their now very unequal society, which led to the Chinese government banning references to it. (Denmark came top with 72% happy.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inequality makes people unhappy. Poverty makes people unhappy. Consumerism makes people unhappy. A real focus on increasing happiness would lead to very radical change in society. Bring it on!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was delighted to be involved in the launch of Action for Happiness last week, giving a short speech on increasing happiness in the workplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,25],"tags":[],"blog-post-type":[35],"class_list":["post-8399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-henrys-blog","category-the-happy-manifesto","blog-post-type-blog-with-image"],"acf":{"read_or_watch_time":"Read length: 5 min read"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.2 (Yoast SEO v26.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Happiness is a Political Issue - Happy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/happiness-is-a-political-issue\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Happiness is a Political Issue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was delighted to be involved in the launch of Action for Happiness last week, giving a short speech on increasing happiness in the workplace.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/happiness-is-a-political-issue\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Happy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HappyLtd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-21T13:57:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-01T07:42:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/arliemediadesign.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/action-for-happiness.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Henry Stewart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@happyltd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@happyltd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Henry Stewart\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/happiness-is-a-political-issue\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/happiness-is-a-political-issue\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Henry Stewart\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/d908b838c968ee1e7ac9fef10a219ddc\"},\"headline\":\"Happiness is a Political Issue\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-21T13:57:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-01T07:42:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/happiness-is-a-political-issue\/\"},\"wordCount\":438,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/happiness-is-a-political-issue\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/arliemediadesign.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/action-for-happiness.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Henry's blog\",\"The Happy Manifesto\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/happiness-is-a-political-issue\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/happiness-is-a-political-issue\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/happiness-is-a-political-issue\/\",\"name\":\"Happiness is a Political Issue - 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