How to find happiness by running a marathon a month

Two years ago, I was introduced to the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) during a university lecture. It was literally one of those ‘ah ha’ moments that Oprah used to talk about on her show.

The King Of Bhutan

The lecture went a little like this, "with his famous declaration in the 1970's, the former King of Bhutan confronted narrow and materialistic philosophies of human progress. He blatantly pointed out that the existing development paradigm – Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – did not consider the ultimate goal of every human being: happiness. The King declared that GDP was neither an equitable nor a meaningful measurement for happiness, nor should it be the primary focus for governance; and thus, the philosophy of GNH was born. This revolutionary vision of GNH has guided Bhutan to a balanced ‘middle road’ in which equitable socio-economic development is integrated with environmental conservation, cultural promotion and good governance."

You had me at Happiness

It was a Thursday evening class, Perspectives on Environment and Sustainability. It had been a demanding work day, so my brain was feeling pretty mushed and was diverting its attention all over the place. But as soon as it heard about this cool King who created GNH it was all like ‘You had me at Happiness.’

It all sounded really good but I did have my reservations - when anything sounds too good to be true it usually is right?

I went home and did a little research on this King of Bhutan and GNH and what I found was a wealth of information that lead me to all sorts of wonderful articles and web pages. It was like when you start looking at someone’s Facebook page and then 5 hours later you somehow find yourself looking at pictures of their brother’s mate’s Dad’s sister’s hairdresser's puppy photos - I mean it was that good! By the time I finished I wanted to convert to Buddhism and move to Bhutan!

GNH or GDP?

So, to cut a long story short on why, in my opinion, GNH is a better way of measuring how well a society satisfies the major concerns of people’s everyday life I have broken it down into four key points:

1. Happiness is a more comprehensive measure of well being. It considers a range of concerns while GDP is limited to one aspect of the economic side of life, the output of goods and services.
2. The evaluation of happiness is made by the people whose well being is being assessed. For GDP, the judgement on well being is made by outsiders, so-called “experts”.
3. Happiness is a measure with which people can personally identify. GDP is an abstraction that has little personal meaning for individuals.
4. Happiness is a measure in which each person has a vote, but only one vote, whether rich or poor, sick or well, old or young. Everyone in the adult population counts equally in the measure of society’s well being.

Money isn't everything

The aphorism that money isn’t everything in life, applies here. If only happiness could supplant GDP as a leading measure of societal well being, public policy might perhaps be moved in a direction more meaningful to people’s lives.

And now I know you are sitting there thinking ‘what on earth has this go to do with running a marathon.’ And here it is – all this happiness talk essentially lead me to think about what it is that makes me happy and gives me my Mojo?

I would have thought that the answer would be an easy one, but I found it really, really hard. So, I did what I always do when I don’t know the answer to something… I asked ‘the google.’

Turns out that not being able to put your finger on exactly what makes you happy is not uncommon. 

We’re a little confused about the whole idea of happiness. We tend to think of it as an intangible, yet weirdly concrete, thing – it takes us forever to track it down, but once we get it, we imagine life will be everything we always dreamed of. Sound familiar?

The truth is, happiness doesn’t work like that. The constantly sunny dispositions that we are bombarded with daily through media and advertising are actually not real and only add to our confusion of what happiness is. Seriously you don’t need much to make you happy - you just need the right stuff for you.

The pursuit of happiness

That’s why it’s important to identify things that make YOU happy and embrace them.

So, how do we start adding the happy to our lives?

Easy – JUST DO IT – it’s as simple as that (clearly Nike advertising has had a long-term impact on me and I shall seek professional help if the problem persists). What I have found is that all that motivational stuff actually starts to work – if you let it. The harsh reality is that no one else is going to care as much about your life or happiness as you. They’re not jerks – they’re just busy taking care of their own lives.

So, decide. Are you a do-er or a don’t-er?

I realised that I am at my happiest whilst running and that is why I decided 'to be a do-er' and run a marathon a month in 2017.

I dreamed big, I made a plan, I devoted many hours, I surrounded myself with like minded people for support, and I put my heart and soul into it. I put one foot in front of the other, kept plodding along, and eventually I reached my goal of running a marathon a month, and I have never felt happier.