GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS

March.17, 2013 - In Europe, people feels helpless, the news items are increasing giving the shudders when they become the translation of the daily despair of populations : more and more desperate people having no more income commit spectacular suicide (self-immolation): they are job seekers because the end of allocation, mothers whose limited means have disappeared or simply anonymous suicides (farmers and small businessmen in bankruptcy...).

And so, Life seems to be no more bearable, Happiness no more attainable not because people should be "out of resources" -because in the so-called "rich" countries, there are plenty of public, para-public, private, religious organization and associations which exist for helping-. No, in these countries so-called "rich" becoming rich less and less, people commit especially suicide because there is no more money, that they feel ashame of this situation, and consider that without money there is no hope for a better future ... and so, it should no longer worth living?

Sad, sad ... Thus, in some countries, the concept of consumerism announced as the antechamber of social happiness, seems to run short ... above all when the money runs out. Materialism which has been the happiness index in the western countries is no longer a safe haven in these times of crisis when social differences are less and less tolerable. But when money is vanishing, what marker could confort people who learn nothing else than materialism and consumerism as keys for happiness?

In 1972, a country like the Kingdom of Bhutan (Himalayas), inspired by Buddhist, established a Gross national happiness measuring somes indices different from the world Gross domestic product, such as education, health and access to culture. Considering this peculiar rating, an Italian philosopher has recently suggested that the three Bhutan indices were used to stimulate imagination and creativity, two virtues which appear essential in a world in search of markers.
However, since a long time the Western countries already have taking benefit of education, health and access to culture... So, what it’s missing that prevents them from stimulating imagination and creativity?

Simply, a kind of spirituality... either intellectual or spiritual... for dreaming about a new world, a better one...

Thus, one sees the secular people of France, the only country where secularism is constitutional, crumbles since years under antidepressants with an increasing feeling of gloom and despair ... while others, such as the population of Naples, by example, from one of the poorest in Europe, going on smiling in misery and hoping, giving thanks to the Madonna.

It is that kind of spirituality that is missing for moving forward, inventing, rather than trampling and self-destroying... Its name is Hope! and its the Mother of all vertues.