Dan Buettner - The Blue Zones of Happiness: Lessons From the Worlds Happiest People

D AN B UETTNER BRINGS TOGETHER in this book a wonderful mix of inspiring stories and practical recommendations to help you understand happiness and how you might increase it in your own life and in those of people around you.

Unlike those found in many books on happiness, his recommendations are based not on hunches, opinions, or guesswork, but on scientific findings. I have been conducting scientific research on well-being for the past 35 yearson measuring it, determining what causes it, and learning what happens when people achieve it. It is exciting to see a world-class popular writer such as Dan use the findings from the research that I and others have been pursuing.

Some of these recommendations apply to pretty much everyone. Exercising and eating nutritiously are all-around good ideas, for example. Spending quality time with others is also essential for most of us to achieve happiness, no matter where you happen to live. (In a recent study, we found that every person in Costa Rica who was asked mentioned that their family was a source of happiness for them.) Sustainable happiness also requires pursuing our goals and values, developing supportive relationships with others, and engaging in other endeavors that matter.

At the same time, as Dan recognizes, when it comes to happiness, one size does not fit all. Each person must individualize his or her own happiness program. What works for Dan might not work for me. I work long hours and love it, and I have no need or desire to cut back, while Dan recommends that you find a job that allows you to work less than 40 hours a week in order to spend more time socializing. So you can pick and choose from Dans recommendations to see which ones might work best for you, and then focus on those. Make them a permanent part of your life.

Another valuable aspect of Dans book is that, besides offering personal suggestions for happier individuals, it also makes policy recommendations for happier communitiesagain, based on scientific findings. These include such ideas as providing more green space, more bike paths, and more opportunities for people to exercise in nature, as well as zoning that allows residents to shop and work closer to home, reducing the horrendous amount of commuting that many now must undertake. This book is chock-full of such ideas derived from research about things communities can do to make life more rewarding.

The fact is that those around us, including our leaders and our larger social spheres, have a lot to do with our feelings of well-being. Even in a nation such as the United States there are happy and unhappy places, and these have a lot to do with their circumstances and the policies that drive them. We might fool ourselves into thinking our happiness is entirely up to us, but in truth our friends, community, society, and even our nation can do a lot to help or hinder us. Societal and organizational policies complement and enhance peoples own activities in determining how happy they are.

It might surprise you to learn that I occasionally come across leaders both in business and government who object to such policies on principle, because they believe that happiness is something that people need to pursue on their own. They view it as a luxury, or a hobby, and say that things such as work, values, and the welfare of society must come first. Some even see happiness as a hedonistic endeavor, concerned with individual pleasure rather than the well-being of others.