International Day of Happiness. It's a thing.

Happiness can be measured. And it can be cultivated by societies. If only we wanted it to be.

The World Happiness Report reflects a worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and well-being as criteria for government policy.

There is a thing call Word Happiness Day. On March 20th. And you can celebrate it with me.

It is preceded by a report published each year by the United Nations called The World Happiness Report. Please take moment to download the report. It's long. But worth the time to read.

Published now for over 10 years, this report reviews the state of happiness in the world and measures how the science of happiness can help governments devise policy to achieve personal and national happiness.

The report is based on extensive Gallup Polling of the citizens of member nations, measuring life satisfaction of a set of criteria then ranking the respondents totals.

The resulting scores are then based on individuals’ own assessments of their lives, in particular, derived from their answers to what is termed "the single-item Cantril ladder life-evaluation question." The Cantril ladder asks respondents to imagine a ladder, with the best possible life scored a 10 and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to evaluate their own lives on that 0 to 10 scale. The rankings are weighed from nationally representative averages over a period of three years.

But it does not rely on merely opinion or anecdote. The nations are also ranked by how they meet other more material metrics, such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and a corruption index.

The World Happiness Report and much of the growing international interest in happiness exist thanks to Bhutan. They sponsored Resolution 65/309, “Happiness: Towards a holistic approach to development,” adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 19 July 2011, inviting national governments to “give more importance to happiness and well-being in determining how to achieve and measure social and economic development.”

On 2 April 2012, chaired by Prime Minister Jigmi Y. Thinley and Jeffrey D. Sachs, the first World Happiness Report was presented to review evidence from the emerging science of happiness for the ‘Defining a New Economic Paradigm: The Report of the High-Level Meeting on Well-being and Happiness.’ On 28 June 2012, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/281, proclaiming the 20 March International Day of Happiness to be observed annually. The World Happiness Report is released annually around March 20th as part of the International Day of Happiness celebration.

Happiness should not be radical. It shouldn't be a radical ask that our leaders devise polices which strive to make life happier for all human beings.

Step one is celebrating The International Day of Happiness.

See also: The Human Development Report.