The Green Book - Happiness Vs Money

Can you have one without the other

So “Happiness” has made it into The Green Book, our constitution if you live here in the UK. The green book is the cornerstone of government, the contents determining upon what government debate and policy is centred around however never before has a subject so contrary in nature to the hard and fast tangible quantities of fiscal and economic principles been suggested as the potential key to our emergence from deepening concerns of drastic recession and potential bankruptcy.

The question of happiness has been debated by philosophers since the beginning of time but could a lack of it be at the heart of our global economic crisis? You get the feeling David Cameron is suggesting “maybe” with his two million investment into a “debate on happiness” following his passionate pitch for a “Big Society” in Britain.

Logically if we are happy and generally optimistic about our lives we perform better at work. Happy business, leads to happy customers, leads to profitability confirmed by business leaders across all sectors, with more and more human resource departments within business becoming accountable profit centres, their mandate to ensure employee welfare and wellbeing; ie Happiness.

There are many that will say with the finances in the mess they are in and a 4.8 trillion pound national debt, spending a single penny on something of this nature is at best stupid and at worst reckless. However the truth is, the likelihood of us ever getting back into the black staying on the current path is totally unrealistic. We are still borrowing more money i.e. not generating enough through taxation to cover public spending even with all the drastic measures, cuts and job losses.

It is true other countries, like Canada and France have explored this avenue of debate and the changes in policy implemented as a result have had a positive impact. When polled people are much more likely to cite happiness over money when asked about personal desires and aspirations indicating perhaps a deep rooted knowledge or truth in the subconscious or the psyche that as beings we know money is not the key even though society likes to convince us otherwise.

Photo by: Taylor Deas-Melesh Unsplash