Is Happiness Mandatory?

Sep 2, 2019

I was invited to speak at the 50th TEDx Singapore salon event on 31st August 2019, which also celebrated 10th Anniversary of TED Talks in Singapore. The theme for the event that day was “So as to achieve happiness… “

During the panel discussion, the first question from the audience was, “Is Happiness Mandatory?” I was the first panelist to picked up the mic, I asked a question instead, “Why don’t you want to be happy?” 

I don’t think anyone can mandate someone else to be happy.  No government in their sane mind will ever pass a law to mandate that everyone has to be happy, for us to be a “happy nation”. Happiness is a personal choice and is very subjective.  There is no one form or standard of happiness. We define what happiness looks like for ourselves and it changes at different phases of our life. What this means to organizations that want to create a happy working culture is that you cannot create a single-minded happiness model because there isn’t one to start with.  Instead, work towards creating ‘space’ to cater to the personalization of “happiness”.  I am not referring to just physical space, but the ability to accommodate diverse needs, styles and expression of happiness.  The mindset of the employees to be open is very important.  Invest in helping them to be more open to diversity and build skills sets to work with differences.

Not forgetting that all emotions are equally important. As Dr. Chris Cheok (Psychiatrist, President of Singapore Psychiatric Association) said at his presentation during the TEDx, “Dopamine makes you dumb!” So too much of happiness, being a pollyanna may not be good for the productivity of the organization or our own life.