International Day of Happiness

Why March 20?

On this date (and also on 23 September), the center of the sun is directly above the Earth's equator, which is called an equinox. On the equinox, day and night last for an almost equal time all over the Earth. The equinox is felt by everyone on the planet, which matches perfectly with the idea behind the Day of Happiness. Since 2013, the Day of Happiness has been celebrated in all 193 United Nations member states.

The idea goes back to 1972, when the King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, said that we should measure a country's progress by its happiness and not just how much it produces or how much money it makes. He called it Gross National Happiness (GNH). Again, it is more than just a nice idea. Bhutan developed a system to measure happiness based on things like people's psychological health, their general health, how they spend their time, where they live, their education, and their environment. People in Bhutan answer about 300 questions, and the results are compared every year to measure progress. The government uses the results and the ideas behind GNH to make decisions for the country. Other places use shorter, similar versions of this kind of report, for example, the city of Victoria in Canada and Seattle in the USA, as well as the state of Vermont, USA.

The UN measures and compares the happiness of different countries in the World Happiness Report. It bases its report on social, economic, and environmental well-being. The UN also sets goals for countries to achieve to increase happiness because it says happiness is a basic human right. Happiness should not be something people have because they are lucky to live in a place where they have basic things like peace, education, and access to healthcare. If we agree that these basic things are human rights, then it is not a very big step to agree that happiness is a basic human right too.