Happiness Makes the World Go ‘Round
Columbia University’s Earth Institute have just made publicly available their World Happiness Report, joining the expanding list of happiness reports emerging ultimately from Bhutan’s Happiness Index. There’s some interesting results in this one and some that you might expect were more obvious, like the idea that at a certain point, more money won’t make you significantly happier. From page five – ‘…a word of warning for those who expect to become happier by becoming richer…evidence is quite overwhelming that after a certain point the gains are very small’. This for me taps into the ‘Enoughness’ paradigm I’ve been writing about for a few years
There’s other interesting insight to in regard to the progress of certain countries and overall ideas on what can be done to lift people’s happiness. Mental Health is a major key here yet often ignored as an area of Government support. You can go to the Columbia website at http://www.earth.columbia.edu or if you want to download the report from here, click this link It’s about 7meg in size
In a recent article in The Age, Clive Williams of Macquarie University’s Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism suggested that athletes booked in to attend the Commonwealth games in India need to consider a terrorist attack as a potential wildcard. Whilst an interesting perspective, I’d like to suggest that a potential terrorist attack at…
Read More >If my information is correct, the 14th of February is the start of the New Year and instead of the usual flowers and chocolates, you might be wise to invest in another gift for your heart’s desire Because Feb 14 is the start of the Chinese New Year – the year of the Tiger. So…
Read More >Had any thoughts yet? I have – plenty and judging from the number of media inquiries it appears lots of other people are also curious to know what might lie ahead in the next year or next decade. I’m putting my thinking hat on so that we can consider what 2010-2019 might hold, the second…
Read More >I’m tipping that Consensus will be reached at Copenhagen this week. Alas it will be a consensus for more talking, thinking and commitments to agree to a proposal to set a time for a discussion around more concrete targets. In otherwords, a commitment to not commit. The politicians waver whilst our planet is being poisoned.…
Read More >The cycle of consumption rears its head as it has done for quite some time. Consumption is neither good, nor bad, it ‘just is’ and right now the majority of media exposed potential consumers are being lured, enticed and occasionally conned into parting with their hard earned money to satisfy needs and whims. Some consumers…
Read More >Our son has just celebrated his fifth birthday and although we don’t make a huge fuss about milestones (the kids get a party every second year), there’s no doubt that he is learning about desired future outcomes and goals. I doubt he is different from most kids in his ability to spot something and declare…
Read More >Here’s a little something I’d like you to think about. Are you really who you say you are? And, how do I know that I can trust you? Identity Theft is one of the most debilitating crimes a person can suffer for it strips away the very core of your own belief system and that…
Read More >‘World – we have a problem’ (apologies to astronaut James Lovell). We are killing ourselves with food and it’s happening at both ends of the continuum – millions starve each day whilst a gluttony caused obesity epidemic is killing others off in different ways. We have a growing global population requiring sustenance, whilst Climate Change…
Read More >Anyone looking at the final rainfall figures for Melbourne’s rainfall might be heartened by the news that the final result was about 10mm above the September average. Compared to last year’s disastrous result where we had about 12mm, it was over 50mm better. But I wonder if the final result, and the current ‘average’ isn’t…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber discussed the future of travel at the ANTOR session at The American Club in Sydney, NSW on the 24th of September. Along with Angela Smith from Roy Morgan Research, Martin Kelly from Travel Trends and Gail Rehbein from the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility Marcus proposed some of the emerging…
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