Happiness: Bhutan vs Singapore

I enjoyed Khaw Boon Wan's speech on Bhutan. I think it is obvious to most of us that the Bhutanese are poor. In fact, I might be one of the few people here who have a Bhutanese acquaintance as a result of my website. From our emails to each other, even as a civil servant, I can tell he isn't rich.

The point is are they happy? We can be sure they aren't extremely unhappy or they would have rioted. I think they are happier than many living next door; their two giant neighbors. Is that happy enough?

In any society there will always be a segment of unhappy people just as we will always have the poor among us. Question is could we be happier and consequently even richer in more ways if we run ourselves differently by first studying Bhutan even as they keenly watch us. We learn from each other.

We should devise a happiness index, but the path to greater incidence of happiness here must come from facing and fighting our fears. Kiasuism is part of our national psyche. It is nothing but the visible expression of a greater and deeper fear that we might be worse off tomorrow. We have so much to worry about.

Bhutan has created a stable and predictable zone. Singapore cannot do the same. This is the first major difference. Perhaps the only thing we could borrow from them is to create social measures of happiness so that we have a framework and direction to work toward. I agree with Sylvia Lim. The details we have to figure out for ourselves as our position beyond being small and vulnerable as they are cannot be more different. This will also be a test if we have the courage to allow other objectives to compete directly against economic growth. Truly, the fashion we pursued growth over the last few years were not sustainable. So it is wise to layer over what we have new indicators for happiness however rough, raw and imperfect it might be. Let's just get going.