The World Happiness Report , a publication of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network was recently released. The report pertaining to the Year 2021 drawing its conclusions through a global survey spread across 150 countries makes some interesting revelations and is indeed an engrossing read.
The key parameters which the report focusses on and which are instrumental in deciding the rankings include GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom to make life choices and perceptions of corruption. However, my post today is not going to dwell much on these parameters and infact this post is motivated by the findings related to three forms of benevolence that are asked in the Global Survey ( Gallup World Poll).
Donating to charity, helping a stranger and volunteering are the three forms of benevolence, which according to John Helliwell ( one of the Reports founding editors ), have seen a very large increase over 2020 and pre covid times and in particular ‘ helping a stranger ‘ has seen the biggest jump world over. These three factors of benevolence together have risen by 25% over 2020, which in my opinion is an exhorbitant uptick, when we look at the enormous size of the population the poll has reached out to. The rampaging pandemic across countries in 2020 and in 2021 led to the increase in this benevolence as per the report.
I feel a sense of relief that still in this unforgiving world there are millions of human beings which have been benevolent towards their fellow dwellers and brethren. They have gone out of their way to donate for and help strangers. This act represents no less than a shining beacon amongst the prevailing darkness. The sad point is that it took a major catastrophe like the pandemic to bring people together. When tragedy struck, I myself saw people helping out and reaching out to their countrymen by way of charity or by way of volunteering their time and energy. Nobody knew who they were helping. The colour, the caste, the creed, the religion, all of it had been obscured. Humanity prevailed. Strangers gave solace to the ones who grieved, shared their pain and lent a hand. Ironically the tough times had made the world a better place to live and this is exactly what has been brought about in the Happiness Report.
The Happiness report has judged Finland as the happiest country in the world for the 5th straight year. Its Nordic neighbours make the top 5 and a large portion of Europe, The Unites States, Canada and Australia- New Zealand make up the top 20. However there are larges swathes of land and population which are rendered unhappy and there is a massive gap between the happiest and the most unhappy. What steps UN takes on this report is of importance and I hope they take some concrete measures to bridge this ever so widening gap.
It would also be interesting to see how the factors of generosity and benevolence perform once the pandemic has softened and lives become normal again. It would be interesting to see whether happiness of a fellow human being overrides the self interests and prejudices prevailing in this world. It would be interesting to see whether we choose inclusivity over division, camaraderie over bad blood and trust over suspicion. What we choose will eventually decide how happy we would be as a human race in the years to come.
The Makings of a Happy World is in our hands. It all depends on the choices we make.