A World of Happiness

A World of Happiness

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Have you ever wondered how you fit into this world of ours? If you fit in at all? Have you ever asked yourself what do you want from life? Can you have it all? And if you can, will it make you happy?

Even as a little girl I suspected I had been beamed down from outer space, for like an alien my curiosity about the human ‘way of being’ has been unquenchable.

I have traveled the world in search of understanding. I wait until I am called and I go with a mission. And I always travel alone. I have been to some mind-blowing places and befriended many remarkable people. And even though there are days when it looks like the world is in a mess, I have good news to report.

One such mission began a long time ago. In fact, it was this mission that triggered LOVE: The Saint and the Seeker.

l992. That was the year nations gathered in Rio de Janeiro, realizing the need for a global paradigm shift. Together, world leaders sat down to create a blueprint for economic improvement, expanded social equity and to pledge their efforts towards securing our earth’s environmental health.

For the world, the next twenty years were tumultuous. At that time, fact-finding and awareness building spelled doom and gloom. After attending a private screening of Leonardo di Caprio’s “The Eleventh Hour” I wanted to go home and slit my wrists. But I changed my mind and went in search of solutions.

Back then, Politicians, other than Vice-President Al Gore and a few other enlightened ones took on earth’s cause as if they were immature parents, regarding Mother Nature as one would a wayward adolescent, arguing over her unsettling behavior, turning a blind eye to climate change, rising sea levels and resource depletion, rationalizing her alarming activities as anomalies. This stuck our eco progress in a recurring time warp.

Technology hastened the emergence of a template that kept advancing itself to deal with the crucial needs of a planet hemorrhaging resources while playing house to an overwhelming population explosion.

Those who cared committed themselves to changing our ways. Civil society and business created innovative products and services. NGO’s emerged with best practices and entrepreneurs came up with new ideas. In some countries they were working for and beside their government and in others, in an effort to make their government accountable for promises made, they hastened the creation and implementation of national policies and new global goals. Solutions were in the works. But scientists were telling us it wasn’t happening fast enough.

In June 2012, I, along with more than 40,000 other concerned people, parliamentarians, mayors, UN officials, CEO’s and civil society leaders, more than 50 heads of state and close to 500 ministers, headed back to Rio de Janeiro, for the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development. In one of the largest international conferences of this century, more than 700 commitments in the amount of $513 billion were pledged to build a sustainable future, signaling a major step forward in achieving a safe and healthy future for the forthcoming generations of planet earth.

While there, I spoke of my search for a land that was doing it right; a sustainable global model. Many years earlier, I found myself called to the Kingdom of Bhutan. It took no time for me to fall in love with an ancient land of dashing Kings and beautiful Queens, beloved by their people. And those people hugged you when saying hello and treated you and other strangers like family. They walked their talk, and their mantra was Gross National Happiness(GNH).

Though sandwiched between two massive industrial polluters, China to the north and India to the south, and living under the constant threat of melting glaciers, their national vision and philosophy of happiness, included strict adherence to their four pillars of GNH. Social Economic Development, Good Governance, Cultural Preservation and Resource Conservation – in short, taking care of each other through sustainable growth, organic and conservative legislation and though the nation could ill afford it, gifting free health care and education for all Bhutanese citizens. I thought I had hit upon the idea that would change the world.

Bhutan does not list as the happiest country in the world and indeed, they are going through their growing pains, in a manner all developing nations do when they open their doors and allow the unbridled progress of the west in. Shifting from a time-honored monarchy to a freewill, modern style democracy, also has its challenges. Yet, the Bhutanese people have a core to them, a cultural and spiritual heart that pulses as one when it comes to their deeply held values.

Of the many times I returned to Bhutan, I found I was walking along paths I was certain I had walked before, yet knowing I was also stepping into a destiny of sorts. I came to know the people well. And I came to easily love them.

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