This well researched book shares the secrets behind the happiest places to live in the world and strategies for us all to add to our pleasure, purpose and pride – the 3 pillars of happiness.
There are plenty of lessons for politicians on designing happy communities, as well as for individuals on what you can do in your community, family life and inner life to stack the odds of achieving happiness in your favour.
It seems the trick is to set up your environment so that you’re ‘nudging’ yourself towards happiness every day without even thinking about it. One of my favourite strategies is about getting out of your car and onto a bike – research shows that ‘one of the things we hate most hate on a day-to-day basis is commuting to and from our jobs in our cars’ so designing your way to living within a bike-able distance from work (and having access to safe roads/paths to cycle on), as well as doing whatever you need to make this the most convenient option for you is a great way to boost your health and happiness.
If you’ve read any of Dan Buettner’s other works on Blue Zones (areas in the world with the longest lived populations) you’ll recognise that many of the ‘happiness’ strategies mirror those that lead to health and longevity.
As an aside – with so much evidence that healthy and happy people make for a healthy and happy society, I’m astounded that there are still countries in the world that don’t provide good quality free healthcare for all citizens. (Not saying that Australia’s system is perfect at all… but let’s not get into that here.)
Along with this book I’m enjoying Dan Buettner’s recipe books and I believe he’s releasing another book about Blue Zones soon which I’m very much looking forward to.