[kictanet] In the pursuit of Happiness

Sun Jan 1 16:43:04 EAT 2012

Walubengo,
Since you started this Happy business, allow me to also wish everybody a prosperous 2012.

I made a stop over here in Dubai but it has been a mountain of experience for me.  I do not know where to start but it must have taken a fortune for the people here to express happiness  the way they did last night in wellcoming the New Year. 

The U.S Declaration of Independence declares that all men have a right to "the pursuit of happiness".  At least the Americans have lived up to this dream.  That is why Russians say "a person who smiles a lot is either a fool or an American".

The History of Happiness is more than 300 years and mostly more of a Western concept and paticularly American.  The Harvard Business Review (HBR) reports that in the 18th century there were measurable advances in human comfort for the middle classes and above, ranging from better home heating to the availability of umbrellas to provide shelter from the rain.  But even with these advances, the British traditionalists objected to the latter as undermining national character.

New research show a high correlation between performance and happiness.  Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King and Ed Diener found that happy employees have, on average, 31% higher productivity; their sales are 37% higher and their creativity is three times higher.  Other studies have similar findings on a country's economic performance.

The discourse on the measure of National Well Being (NWB) through happiness is gaining momentum.  This thinking started in the 18th century.  According to HBR,  an Englishman, Jeremy Bentham in 1781 outlined a philosophy of utility that assessed the merits of an action according to how much happiness it produced.  This was during the Enlightenment period, when thinkers sought to replace religion-based rules with National, scientific guides to decision making and life.

Unfortunately or fortunately welfare economists, Paul Samuelson and Richard Stone without regard to utility, disparaged Bentham's thinking and came up with what we refer today as GDP and GNP.  Top countries by income today are: Qater, Liechtenstein, UAE, S'pore, Luxenboug, Kuwait, Brunei etc.  These countries do not feature highly on National Happiness index.

So the spectacular outward expression of happiness in Dubai did not mean that everybody was happy.  However, Shawn Achor has argued that people who cultivate a positive mind-set perform better in the face of challenge.  He calls this "hapiness advantage" - every business outcome shows improvement when the brain is positive.

My mentor who died in the U.S was not religious but he was very spiritual.  Before his death he had asked me to do a Church service for him.  While a live, we made that arrangement with Presbyterian pastor from his neighbourhood. He used to say "I do not want to give too many instruction from the grave but I need you people to be happy for I shall be happy with re-unions of my loved ones".  At the funeral, there were tears but it was the most beautiful funeral that I have ever attended in happiness.

This is generally the American way that has dimistified some of man kind's worst fears.  Let us all be happy and pursue happiness as our right.

Regards.

Ndemo.

Sent from my BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----
From: Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com>
Sender: kictanet-bounces+bitange=jambo.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.keDate: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 00:29:06 
To: <bitange at jambo.co.ke>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Happy New Year - ref: Re: Vision 2030: ICT and Other
	Sectors Converged (Day 3)

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