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Latest news from Gross National Happiness USA, the broader GNH movement, and essays about growing personal and collective happiness.

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- GNHUSA related blog posts and essays from diverse contributors
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GNH special guest talk by George Lewis - January 18th

Gross National Happiness Perspectives. Learn how GNH is developing locally and globally with George Lewis and GNHUSA board members. Thursday January 18th 6-7:30pm Kellogg-Hubbard Library - East Montpelier Room 135 Main St., Montpelier, VT 05602 Hear a Global Perspective from special guest, George H. Lewis GNH - A vehicle to a new paradigm George H. Lewis is an internationally acclaimed British...

GNHUSA Releases First North Carolina GPI Study

This morning, Gross National Happiness USA released a new report on North Carolina’s economic well-being as measured by the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), a comprehensive metric that accounts for environmental and social factors neglected by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This study measures North Carolina’s economy from 2005 to 2018. Over these 14 years, North Carolina’s GPI...

Bhutan Happiness Conference: True Well-Being for Animals, People

IFAW Project Manager Dr. Erika Flores agreed to foster momma dog Kiki, who was abandoned by her previous owner, and her 8 newborn puppies. A neighbor who sometimes feeds Kiki had noticed that she was pregnant, and was concerned about the health and safety of mom and pups. Dr. Flores will...

The Happiness Walk: Meaning and Joy in Florida

Note: this description of joining GNHUSA's Happiness Walk was originally published at HappinessParadigm.com in September 2015. In September 2016, as the Walk heads from New Mexico to Los Angeles, this essay remains very relevant. Walking the happiness talk! “Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches...

Something Magical Happened - What's Next

Well, that’s it! I arrived in Boston on November 2nd, greeted by family and friends, after walking 10,000 miles over the course of seven years. Gifted with the unique opportunity to see this beautiful country at 3 mph, I savored the wonder and distinct character of 32 states while meeting thousands of people with diverse...

National Geographic: Visit the Top 10 Happiest Countries in the World

By Angie McPherson Looking for a travel destination with great views and friendly people? Try following a cue from the 2016 World Happiness Report. Every year the United Nations measures the quality of life for citizens around the world through surveys and data analysis. The same 13 countries have dominated the top of the list since the...

Gratitude to Tom Barefoot as He Steps Off the GNHUSA Board

GNHUSA Co-founder Tom Barefoot Tom Barefoot, co-founder of GNHUSA, announced on January 16th that the time had come for him to step off the Board. Tom wrote, "I've felt very appreciative to be a part of GNHUSA's founding core, and to share in crafting and spreading the new messages about happiness. I...

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Dispatches from the Happiness Walk

Lead Happiness Walker Paula Francis recently sent her GNHUSA colleagues this colorful and upbeat dispatch from Arizona. We decided to share it with you! Dear folks: I just wanted to send an update now that I've been out for about a month. I'm writing one week out east of Phoenix in Overgaard, AZ sitting in a fire...

GNHUSA Contingent Part of 200,000 Strong D.C. Climate March

On April 30th, in strong sun and record setting heat (93 humid degrees), a hearty band of GNHUSA activists from Vermont and Pennsylvania joined the People's Climate March in Washington, DC. There we blended with an estimated 200,000 other marchers from across the country to stand up for environmental justice and a healthy sustainable future for...

The Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness Taking a cue from a small Buddhist kingdm, Tom Barefoot, A68, urges governments to rethink how they measure progress. By Michael Blanding, illustration by Gaby D'Allessandro "Quick, what makes you happy? If you said economic growth, you are in the minority. When most of us think about what...

George H. Lewis joins GNHUSA's advisory board

We are pleased to share that George H. Lewis has joined GNHUSA's advisor board. George is a world-renowned artist and a global GNH Ambassador. George is regarded as one of the great philosopher polymaths of the modern era as expressed through his art and various mediums including paintings, portraits, photography, sculpture, music, lectures and public speaking,...

What If The Well-Being of a Nation Was About More Than GDP?

We are so pleased to re-post this article by Ashley Sullivan from Jane Goodall's Good News For All which features a report from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) entitled, “Measuring What Matters: True Well-Being for Animals and People,” by Beth Allgood, Marina Ratchford, and Kate Large. Beth, we are proud to point out, is GNHUSA...

Supporting Animal Welfare with the Charter for Happiness

Beth Allgood, Campaigns Director in the United States for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, was at GNHUSA's kick-off of the Charter for Happiness in Santa Fe, New Mexico in June, 2016. She published her insightful views on the connection between a GNH paradigm and animal well being at the IFAW website on June 10,...

GNH Supports The People’s Climate March: A Look Inside How It Works When You Are Serious About Happiness

If you think measuring the right things could change the world, then it behooves you to measure the way you go about promoting that idea. So, if you had been a fly on the wall at the last few Gross National Happiness Board meetings, you would have heard a lot of discussions about the development, fine-tuning,...

Our happiness and animals – the inextricable link.

Do animals make us happy? Most people would answer “yes”. Why else the proliferation of internet cat videos, or baby animal memes posted all over Facebook and message boards. Most of us feel a connection to animals such that even a picture of a furry or feathered creature sleeping will make us smile – or at...

Online Business Publication Highlights Well-Being Measures for Employees

One of the cornerstone's of GNHUSA' s work is the concept that what we choose to measure is critically important in guiding policy-making, in businesses as well as on the governmental level. Naturally we're interested in how others are approaching the "measuring-what-matters" issue -- like Sharon Florentine, Senior Writer for the online business site, CIO....

5 Ways to Take Happiness Seriously

Editor's Note: Welcome to our new Board of Directors member, Rob Moore, the author of this post. He brings a unique perspective to our work. A lot of people I know scoff when I start bringing up “happiness” in a public policy context. Happiness doesn’t get the attention that other social goals like economic growth, unemployment,...

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The Happiness Walk Hits the Halfway Point!

On October 23, 2016, lead Happiness Walker Paula Francis together with friends Brianna, Kaili, and her cycling companion Nic celebrated the Walk's 4,000th mile -- halfway to the final goal of 8,000 in late summer 2018. Mile 4,000 happened in Phoenix, Arizona -- a long, long way from the Walk's starting point in 2012 in...

The Happiness of Breaking Bread Together

A happy customer in line at the March 21 event in Cullowhee, NC, where two local nonprofits dedicated to feeding the hungry teamed up to serve a chef-prepared free meal to over 150 people. Although the first day of Spring (International Day of Happiness) seems far behind us now, reports and photographs...

Happiness Through Ubuntu

Today's guest writer is Grisha Rodchenko, a writer based in Wisconsin. A friend of mine once said, “giving is a selfish act.” She is 100% correct. Last July, when I bought several bottles of water for my fellow passengers waiting in the 93-degree heat for their connecting buses, that was indeed selfish, but the act was...

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Breaking News: Results Are In for 2017 Vermont Happiness Study!

Results from the 2017 Vermont Happiness study are in, and 78% of Vermonters say they’re happy. This study, a unique collaboration between Gross National Happiness USA, the Happiness Alliance, the Vermont State Data Center and the Center for Rural Studies, explores Vermonters’ dispositions across 11 life domains including social connectedness, physical health, material well-being and more. The intent is to provide Vermonters with holistic metrics...

When You're Ready, a Dose of Happiness

I realize my timing might be off. Posting this happiness booster just days after a presidential election that left many of us -- including me -- devastated and exceedingly concerned about the future, may be long before many people are ready to read about happiness. I myself feel a low-grade stomach ache. The threats are...

13+ Resources & Quizzes To Assess Your Happiness Level

This article was written by Celine Sugay and originally appeared on positivepsychology.com on 4/13/2021. Happiness continues to gain more and more attention as topics such as well-being and mental health become more popular. Companies all over the globe have started investing in workshops and learning sessions to help their employees become happier. Despite its increasing popularity,...

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The Happiness Walk Makes Local Headlines

One of the goals of GNHUSA's Happiness Walk is generating news coverage of not only the Walk but also of our broader organizational goals in towns and cities all along our route. While we've learned that many individuals walk the United States for a wide variety of causes, editors and producers are often intrigued by...

What matters most - We want to hear from you

How have your views of what matters most in life changed? It’s understandable that - during this time of extreme uncertainty - many of us are feeling anxious and stressed. Unfortunately, these feelings can be fed if we are not discerning, most especially with our media-intake. INSTEAD, we ask that you turn your attention towards how...

Well-being Economy: A Scenario for a Post-growth Horizontal Governance System

Introduction: A well-being economy? For the past half century, western societies have used a narrow definition of economic growth as the route to development. Growth has become an end in itself. As a result, the true meaning of development has been lost. Rather than an end goal, development should be viewed as a process towards an improved state of...

Great Video from Live Happy

What is Happiness? Learn How to Be Happy In Life

Got a few minutes to connect the personal and big picture happiness dots? Check out this great video from LiveHappy.com While you watch, you might also bear this thought in mind: if cultivating personal happiness leads to greater success (in so many ways), what then might happen...

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Trust in Government is Essential to Happiness

Division in this country or lack of trust in government? This election has shone an inescapably bright light on the divisions in this country. Yet we know from our conversations on the Happiness Walk that we are all much more alike than we are different, that the vast majority of Americans are hopeful and want happiness...

Exciting News from New Zealand: Plans to Use Well-being Measures!

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. We were so excited to read about New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's February 1st speech, in which she announced ground-breaking plans for her country to measure its success holistically, using a tool and framework her Finance Minister Grant Robertson is calling, "the well-being budget." In "Stuff," reporter...

It's 2021. Where Do We Go From Here?

With lockdowns, political paralysis, physical separation from friends and family we want to hold, it’s hard to talk about much of good that has come out of these times. However, we are learning some big lessons – the most important of which are about our need to connect to other human beings, and the importance...

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