National Geographic magazine published an article recently on a book called—The Blue Zones of Happiness by a New York Times best-selling author, Dan Buettner.

The book explores the realm of happiness and Buettner uses three people from different places to illustrate three type of happiness—pleasure, purpose, and pride.  

They are from Costa Rica, Denmark, and Singapore respectively.

The Singaporean who personifies happiness derived from pride aka life satisfaction

It is Douglas Foo, the man who runs Sakae Sushi.

Buettner said that Foo’s clearest telltale sign of happiness was not his wealth but “his laugh: a widemouthed, back-tilted howl of joy.”

Just from that picture, I believe it.

The article also mentioned that this type of happiness is measured by asking people to rate their lives on a scale of zero to ten.

It is called the evaluative happiness and it is considered the gold standard metric of well-being.

Singapore is ranked number one in Asia for life satisfaction.

Buettner uses Douglas Foo as a reflection of Singapore’s approach to happiness.

Buettner mentions Foos as …

“A successful entrepreneur, he drives a $750,000 BMW and lives in a $10 million house. He’s married, with four well-behaved children who excel at school.

He put himself through school working four jobs and started a company that eventually grew into a $59 million multinational enterprise.

He works about 60 hours a week between his business and his philanthropic pursuits. He’s earned the respect of his employees, peers, and the larger community.

He’s worked hard to achieve his success, but as Foo readily admits, he probably couldn’t have created this life anywhere other than Singapore.”

In simpler terms, a lot of hard work and determination was needed to where he is now—the happy place.

This comes as no surprise as our parents have always ensured that we perform well in school and Buettner even mentioned the five C’s we all heard of.

Car, condominium, cash, credit card and club membership.

I don’t know how many of us—especially the strawberry generation—live by that motto.

It is definitely an archaic way of thinking.

I don’t know about you, material wealth means nothing to me. I rather live a simple life and be happy but to each his own.

Other Factors Of Happiness

The article also pulls in six factors—strong economic growth, healthy life expectancy, quality social relationships, generosity, trust, and freedom to live the life that’s right for you—which is used by researchers when publishing the annual World Happiness Report.

Let’s see how Singapore fare in these factors.

Happiness factor of Singapore

As you can tell from the chart, we are doing great in the financial part—explains why Singapore is getting more and more expensive.

But what is jarring to me is that we are at 17% for a sense of purpose.

Is that the price we pay for economic stability?

The emotional poll

We are above the Asian average when it comes to having nice days.

But I’m sure it will be higher without the MRT breakdowns.

Okay, okay, I kid.

Buettner also mentions about Lee Kuan Yew’s crusade to turn Singapore from a fishing village to a modern metropolitan city.

Buettner attributes our nation’s success on Lee Kuan Yew’s strategies to foster racial harmony, reduce crime rates and to ensure everyone is well taken care of through various subsidies.

“The architect of this social experiment was the late Lee Kuan Yew, who led Singapore’s independence movement in 1965. Overwhelmingly loved by Singaporeans, he famously endorsed strict laws and corporal punishment for violent crimes. 

With a keen appreciation for traditional Asian values, Lee set out to build a society based on harmony, respect, and hard work. Anyone who made an effort to work, no matter how lowly the job, was guaranteed a livable wage.

His “workfare” program supplemented low salaries with housing and health care subsidies.”

You must admit, Lee Kuan Yew definitely paved the way to Singapore’s success. From financial stability to low crime rates, we (millennials) have a very comfortable life.

Like Buettner mentioned, people of Singapore exemplify the third strand of happiness, life satisfaction.

Our happiness derives from pide

We are proud of our values and accomplishment as one should be.   

But he did mention this–it often comes at the expense of enjoying moment-to-moment daily pleasures.

I guess you have to read the fine print, you gain some, you lose some.

Singapore is definitely a spectacular city, with its amazing food, phenomenal architecture and not forgetting our low crime rates.

But to plaster, our happiness collectively on one person, Mr Foo, seems a little far-fetched and I think we have a long way ahead before we reach nirvana.

Is this a work of fiction or could it be in the same league as the yearly World Happiness Report?

What do you reckon?

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This article was first published on goodyfeed.com

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Featured image:  straitstimes.com