If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a month, get married. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody else.

Good deeds with kindness can build a compassionate society and, thus, a happy world. Today, 'kindness' is considered a fundamental part of human existence. In addition to technological advancement and economic enrichment, the value of kindness for happiness has not changed since Epicurus's time. Interestingly unlike kindness, happiness has a different meaning to each of us, filtered and defined through the course of each of our lives.

By definition, happiness is 'an inner state or harmony, feeling or attitude'. But, this can mean different things in different cultures. Danes often describe inner harmony in terms of 'HYGGE', which is something like coziness and comfortable pleasantness. They are often said to be the happiest country after Finland and Iceland.

So far, Nordic countries along with a couple of European and North American countries ranked in the top ten (World Happiness Report), well ahead of any Asian, African, or Australasian countries. But, measuring happiness precisely is as difficult as catching a selective butterfly.  In large countries like India or the USA, even comparing people within the same borders can be difficult.

The United States is home to significant regional differences in personality characteristics. Southern Europeans tend to display more 'attachment anxiety', while the western regions breed more' attachment avoidance'. Bhutanese people believe in 'karma' and that if they live a good life, and do good things, they would be better reincarnated in other lives. This faith prompts them to be kind-hearted people who do good deeds for each other. Bhutan is the first country in the world that has introduced a 'Gross National Happiness.' It measures people's quality of life, and makes sure that "material and spiritual development happen together". It has one of the fastest-growing GDPs in the world at the same time as maintaining its environment and its cultural identity.

E-mail: rubaiulmurshed@shomman.org