This article originally appeared in The Simplifier #29.

Measuring Your Gross Personal Happiness

By Shawn Tuttle

How do you value your time and energy? Do your indicators of success reflect those values?

These are rhetorical questions; you probably don’t have easy answers.

You get side-tracked by information that bombards you from all directions. You juggle multiple demands on your attention from people, responsibilities, and your own interests. You confuse yourself by thinking you are making important progress, only to realize later that the end result wasn’t meaningful. Wouldn’t it be great to know that all your efforts were contributing to the bettering of yourself, and thus the world?

We can increase the efficacy of our efforts with useful indicators. Something to remind us of our chosen direction, something by which to evaluate the progress made since the last marker. Just as important as the use of of markers, is what is being measured. Indicators that are aligned with your values unify your efforts, clear your course, and turbo-boost you towards your goals.

The importance of effective indicators is evident when considering how you would know that you are on track if you didn’t have them. When hiking a path for the first time, we depend on landmarks, trail signs, and a cleared path to know that we are on track.

Markers based in your values serve as those landmarks and trail signs. You’ve heard the stories of people who wake up one day, look around them, and realize they are in a career they don’t care about. Where were the markers to keep them on track with their dreams?

If losing sight of indicators is familiar, know you are not alone! In fact, it can happen on a huge scale…

A great example of flawed measuring methods on a large scale is our commonly used measurement of economic “progress”, i.e. the Gross National Product and/or Gross Domestic Product. These two, GNP and GDP, basically measure money flow. Specifically, they measure the total value of final goods and services produced in a year either by a country’s nationals (GNP) or within a country’s borders (GDP).

Looking into this unveils a confounding paradox: What is good for our nation’s economy, according to the GDP, can be potentially terrible for our nation’s citizens. Simple example: While billions of dollars in sales of bottled water (which many would argue is an environmental nightmare) increase the GDP, local sources of clean, free, safe, and drinkable water have no influence on the GDP.

Closer to home, there was a burglary at the yoga studio I attend. The burglars took $65 and a key to the front door, but they didn’t vandalize anything. In reflecting upon the unfortunate situation, our teacher Katie suggested “gratitude” as our intention for that class. I was grateful no one was hurt, not more was taken, and there wasn’t reckless vandalism. Even more so, I was grateful for the community that Katie has fostered over the years—a community that was strengthened by this little adversity, and whose members would have volunteered to clean up and repair damage should there have been a need.

A strong, supportive community and volunteer efforts are not factored into our GDP.

There are at least two tragic flaws in our nation’s system of measuring economic progress. One is that it lacks discernment. Money spent cleaning up a dangerously toxic Super Fund site is treated the same as money spent on measures taken to prevent the pollution from occurring in the first place. In fact, there will probably be more money spent on the clean-up—what a distorted way to measure success!

The other flaw is that it omits factors that make for a healthy society but for which no money exchanges hands, such as the work in parenting a child and volunteerism. By excluding these activities, the GDP/GNP is essentially ignoring their value. By ignoring their value, they are ignored when setting policies to encourage the upward swing of those economic indicators.

In an attempt to encourage an economic indicator that is in line with the best interests of people, a group called Redefining Progress has published a Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). They maintain that a healthy economy is more than money flow. It is directly tied to the health and sustainability of people and their ability to live a good life now and in the future.

To determine the Genuine Progress Indicator, they start with the GDP, add in values for activities that contribute to a healthy society, subtract costs that detract from society’s health, and subtract costs that simply correct the symptoms of an unhealthy society, ex. pollution, health issues caused by pollution, costs associated with divorce and so on. (This is a very brief run-down of their much more sophisticated calculation.)

While the GPI is an attempt to adjust the GDP to reflect the actual state of our nation comprehensively, there is another country that has chosen to use a completely different set of indicators to measure progress.

Bhutan is a small country sandwiched between India and China. In 1972, their king declared, “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product”. Their use of Gross National Happiness (GNH) as an economic indicator reflects the value placed on its citizens’ holistic well-being.

The GPI and GNH call attention to overlooked values by instituting a new national indicator. While financial health is important and necessary, the good health of families, communities, citizens, and of the world we give to our grandchildren is essential for survival.

Bringing it back to your indicators, you can see the parallels in how you measure your success. For example, if your only measurement of success is financial wealth, you may have little care for how that wealth is gained. It may be unethical, or at the expense of loved ones, or distracting you from doing what you love.

Conversely, if you make sure your indicators keep you in line with your values and true goals, positive results occur. Preventing pollution can increase your health (and thereby decrease medical bills) and contribute to your enjoyment of your surroundings (outdoor activities improve mental and physical well being and can increase family time).

Naturally, financial goals are important. The concept of Gross National Happiness is based on the premise that true development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. The same is true at the personal level. Indicators valuing multiple aspects of your well-being are essential to promote your Gross Personal Happiness.

Now you may be in a better position to answer the questions posed at the beginning of this article:

How do you value your time and energy? Do your measurements of success reflect those values?

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Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify