Day of Happiness
Mannheim design students advocate a “Ministry of Happiness and Wellbeing”.
Aristotle was already well aware of the human striving for happiness, and believed it was linked above all to community. The founding fathers behind the United States Declaration of Independence even made “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” a constitutional right for all, while the Kingdom of Bhutan is famous for having enshrined happiness as its national objective. The idea is that politics should be determined not by economic criteria alone, but also by the wellbeing of the country’s population.
All of this is commemorated by the “International Day of Happiness”, which is celebrated on 20 March and was first staged by the United Nations in 2013. “The world needs a new economic paradigm that recognizes the parity between the three pillars of sustainable development”, stresses UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. “Social, economic and environmental wellbeing are indivisible.”
“Work life balance” and “Generation Y”
In Germany too, the question of happiness features in many social debates even if the term itself is not always used. Instead, people talk about the “work-life balance” or about the young “Generation Y”, whose members tend to prioritize their personal lives rather than investing all their resources in scrambling up the career ladder. How do we wish to live? What is important to us? And to what extent should the state and society take concrete steps to improve the population’s general wellbeing?
The German “Ministry of Happiness and Wellbeing” is seeking answers to such questions. This official-sounding title is part of a campaign launched by young communication designers in a project initiated at the design faculty of Mannheim University of Applied Sciences. “Our goal is clear and unequivocal”, say Gina Schöler and Daniel Clarens, who have made the campaign the subject of their MA dissertations. “Loosely following the example set by Bhutan, we are making an appeal for our gross national happiness.” These self-styled ambassadors of happiness plan to use social media and roadshows to “provoke a discussion that will become increasingly powerful all over Germany”, as well as calling for people to send in their “stories about happiness”. Incidentally, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also took the time to find out more about Bhutan’s happiness index at the International Germany Forum staged in the Federal Chancellery.
International Day of Happiness on 20 March
