When I think of happiness, the things that come to mind are...... puppies, sunshine, brownies, good food, money, having the car for the night, going to party's and not doing homework, but I am most happy when I am with my friends. It's probably because we are always up to some sorts of shenanigans or tom foolery, like having a cardboard cut out of Justin Bieber order for us at Mickey D's. If I were to rate my happiness on a scale of 1-10 it would be a 8.5. That's pretty good. It might actually better than that if there was some sort of way to find out. In my personal opinion, I think that having a national happiness index would be a great idea for the U.S. I mean, what's the point in living if you aren't living a happy life? It might be somewhat difficult to graph "happiness" but I'm sure someone could figure it out. The easiest way to measure it would most likely be by the public taking a survey that asked them how happy they were in a variety of categories from economically, religiously and just how many hours of fun do you have in a day. If we could figure out how to do this, I feel the government would be willing to work with it, because a happy nation is a prosperous nation.
After we read the story "I've Been Called A Luddite", I was a little surprised with what I was reading. The narrator of the story was seriously unhappy with technology. What's so wrong with it? People use it everyday, it's fun, useful and entertaining. How could it not make you happy? But then there are the "Luddites." They think that it only causes trouble and destroys jobs that used to be done before modern technology. That is true. It might cause trouble and destroy some jobs, but it also helps to fix problems and it does create new jobs. 50 years ago, books may have been typed by typist's but now we have programmers. In society which will contribute more, a typist that is unnecessary or a programmer that is designing the next program for a car you don't have to drive! It may seem like the world would be better off without technology, but without, that story wouldn't have even been seen by me, if not even typed! If technology doesn't make someone happy they shouldn't use it, but that doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't be able to use it.
Have you ever noticed how catalogues like L.L. Bean and Pottery Barn always place a lab puppy on the furniture for sale? I think that they are definitely trying to link their furniture to puppies; and like you pointed out in your blog, puppies and happiness are interchangeable. I think it's interesting that you connect our government's willingness to use a happiness survey to how that survey directly links to economic prosperity. Unlike Bhutan, you suggest that US's motivation for using that survey is to improve the economy instead of actual individual happiness.
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