Get happy

Hetan Shah
Policy Director at Compass, co-author of The Well-being Manifesto

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO read the newspapers each week without stumbling across another survey on what makes us happy or which city has the best quality of life.

Odd to think, then, that the term “quality of life” didn’t exist until 50 years ago, and that it didn’t make it into dictionaries until 1978.

Happiness – incorporated into terms such as “well-being” and “satisfaction” - is being taken seriously these days. The Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit quietly produced a paper on “life satisfaction” in 2002.

At the New Economics Foundation we produced The Well-being Manifesto in 2004. A highly regarded economist at the London School of Economics recently wrote a book called Happiness. And in March 2005 the government committed to measuring “well-being” in a new development initiative.

“Joining a group of some kind can halve the risk that you die next year.”

There’s a good reason for all the interest: research proves that one of the most reliable ways to get happy is to muck in with your local community. What’s more, you’re likelier to get even happier as time goes by: the relationship works positively in both directions and good vibes spiral upwards: involvement increases happiness and happy people tend to become more involved in their community…

It ties in with the fact that we are social animals, and with the amazing statistic that if you do not belong to any group, joining a club or society of some kind will halve the risk that you die next year.

So what does this mean in practise? Well, it doesn’t mean that you have to help a “registered charity”. There are a huge number of community organisations which don’t have this status but which have a profound bonding effect on society and which are scattered like gold dust across the country. If you contribute to them, not only are you helping yourself, you are also helping organisations which the government doesn’t see and therefore doesn’t fund.