International Day of Happiness

There's more behind the International Day of Happiness than you might think. Find out more by reading the article and answering the questions.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the article and do the exercises.

Preparation

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You might think the International Day of Happiness is a day to practise positive thinking or to give thanks for the things in your life that make you happy. But it's actually a United Nations project which has a more serious purpose. The UN thinks happiness will only be for everyone when the people of the world are equal.

Why 20 March?

On this date (and also on 23 September), the centre of the sun is directly above the Earth's equator, which is called an equinox. On the equinox, day and night last for 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.

How did the idea start?

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 man behind the International Day of Happiness

In 2011, a UN adviser called Jayme Illien suggested the idea of an international day to increase happiness. His plan was accepted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2012. Jayme was born in Calcutta, India, and he became an orphan when he was a child. He was adopted by an American nurse, Anna Belle Illien. She travelled the world to help orphans and she took Jayme with her. He saw children like him, but who were not as lucky as him because they were often escaping wars or they were very poor. He wanted to do something about it, so he worked in the areas of children's and human rights.

The World Happiness Report

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.

Source

https://dayofhappiness.net

Task 1

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Task 2

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Discussion

What is the most important thing people need to be happy?

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Worksheet84.01 KB

Language level

B1 Intermediate

Topics

special days

equality and diversity

Hello everyone I really enjoyed to read this article and i think the most important thing people need to be happy is mental health. You can't be a happy person with unhealthy mental.

Yesssss

Very nice ">c

Happiness is a feeling so you can't describe it exactly. to feel happy you need something that motivate you, something that you love it. It is definitely different in different people. Every person needs different motivation to be happy, some people like money, some like a lover, some people like bright future while other just live in present and as long as they have enough money and enough welfare they will be happy. I don't know how Bhtan's king measure happiness, It is so difficult to measure a feeling, there are people who are rich, they have a good family but they are sad and depressed. But when a society is poor and people don't have money and good job they are definitely not happy. For me it is difficult to be happy, actually I've never felt deep feeling of happiness, though I'm not poor and I have a good family. I feel happy sometimes when I travel with my family or friends, but it is difficult to express myself and say what I want. I just know I never feel happy to what I have.

What I want to say is that happiness is the most significant thing in life. It's easy to understand because everyone dies, but people who enjoy their life a lot have no regrets. Besides, we all have some tough time. If we stay happy, we will get out it very quickly. Back to happiness it self, I would say happiness is an attitude, not a right or something else. So I think the reason why many people are not happy now is that they put too much pressure on themselves and forget they are human, they can be happy whenever they want to be.

Hello everyone As you know, life without purpose is meaningless, so we set goals in all processes of our lives. then we try all the best to succeed them one by one with strong efforts. then we are trying to think positively and do not lose our hope. my opinion a disappointed person lose everything in his life. but the most important thing is when you come across a problem do not convert it into a crisis. we should learn to manage our problems. and if they are not under control we will imagine the end of it , ie imagine the problem is continuously unresolved, and at last, imagine and say your self, what will going on then, so you realize that the thinking makes you feel both relief and calm. all the best Mehrazin

In my mind, the most important thing is psychological matters. People have to know exactly what a human is? And what does this creature need? We have to know ourselves and our problems. Sometimes we just need to recognize shortages and take a step to solve them. Sometimes problems are out of our control. Humans' today life is a consequence of tremendous progress throughout history. We should solve many difficult problems to achieve a brilliant future.

I think happiness is something that is very important in my life. I do what I like, I get my job which I feel it is comfortable. When I am happy, I can do everything although it is very hard for me and seems to impossible. I believe the day of happiness makes people have belief in life. On March 20th, the balance between day and night is like the balance of everything life. It must be the best idea when in a year, the whole world has a happy day together.

From my side, I guess the most important thing for happiness is to think with positive vibes because we made the happiness for ourself unless there are a lot of problems.