The Little Book of Lykke by Meik Wiking

Reading time: 10 minutes

Concept of Happiness

Happiness refers to “feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.“

The way our world has been measuring happiness for decades is reflected by this conversation between two friends meeting after a long time.

‘How are you?’ one friend asks the other.

‘I make 30,364 dollars a year,’ says the other. 

The world has been using income as a proxy for happiness and quality of living. Income, though a vital element of happiness, is not sufficient to be happy. Income is an objective measure, while happiness comprises of several subjective elements. 

Viktor E. Frankl, a psychiatrist and a holocaust survivor, in his soul searching book Man’s Search for Meaning says,

Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.

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The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.

Happiness cannot be the direct objective of any endeavour.

Happiness must happen, as a by-product of the endeavour: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. 

Let’s understand what makes happiness ‘happen.’

Before that, just a brief detour to explore the dimensions of happiness.

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Three Dimensions of Happiness

Happiness research distinguishes between ‘being happy right now‘ (affective dimension) and ‘being happy overall‘ (cognitive dimension).

The affective (or hedonic) dimension measures happiness here and now. If you look at yesterday, were you happy, sad, stressed, or worried?

To measure the cognitive dimension, people have to step back from the immediate and evaluate their lives. How satisfied are you with life? How happy are you overall? 

Both dimensions are connected and overlap. If your yesterday was filled with positive emotions, you are likely to report higher levels of overall happiness with life.

There’s a third dimension of happiness based on the ancient Greek world for happiness called eudaimonia. According to Aristotle, eudaimonia refers to “living a meaningful and purposeful life.“

This article focuses on the cognitive dimension or overall happiness.

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What’s the Key to Happiness?

There are lessons for happiness from countries and cultures all around the world – no single culture or country has a monopoly on happiness (not even Bhutan or Denmark or the Scandinavian countries). 

For example, even though the latest World Happiness Report shows that Finland is the happiest country, it measures the average levels of happiness. Meaning the country has a mix of happy Finns and unhappy Finns, with the balance tilted towards happy.

This article relies on the annual World Happiness Report and a book The Little Book of Lykke by Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Lykke is the Danish word for happiness and is pronounced as ‘LuuH-Kah’

The World Happiness Report shows a four-point gap between the happiest and the unhappiest countries, most of this gap arising from six factors below – 

• Togetherness or Sense of Community
• Money
• Health
• Freedom
• Trust
• Kindness

Note: Some folks have criticized this approach of measuring happiness of a grouping of people, like countries, because happiness is an individual matter. Happiness is an individual choice that is independent of the society, its structures, and enabling or dis-enabling conditions and not something to be measured using variables that can only capture a nation’s well-being. According to these critics, one cannot speak of a happy or unhappy nation, but happy or unhappy individuals. 

Let’s be aware of this viewpoint, but I believe it is worthwhile to understand the ingredients that make up the secret sauce of happiness.

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The Secret Sauce of Happiness

This part of the article is essentially a summary of The Little Book of Lykke by Meik Wiking.

Here are the six ingredients as outlined in the book.

1. Togetherness or Sense of Community

Create Rituals of Food and Fire

Sharing food nurtures more than our physical body. It feeds our friendships, bolsters our bonds, and nourishes our sense of community.

The capacity of fire and food to bring people together is almost universal across cultures and geographical boundaries.

And sometimes we need to do no more than light a candle to create a sense of community across our dinner tables.

Meik Wiking, The Little Book of Lykke

Happiness of the Commons

Unlike most kids these days, my generation growing up had an unusual amount of freedom and security with children from different families running in and out of houses. 

Creating common areas for the community encourages social interactions and impromptu conversations between residents.

So take the street you are living in and plant a community.

Five ways to plant a community:

1. Create a directory for your street or stairway
2. Establish a book-lending cupboard
3. Use soft-edges, spaces like porches or front gardens, that give welcoming vibes that encourage interactions. Noise from neighbours ceases to annoying once you get to know their names and stories.
4. Build a community garden
5. Start a tool-sharing programme

It Takes a Village to Raise a Child

This Western African proverb reminds us that no one can survive or be happy alone. 

If you think back to a time you felt happy – a time you felt good, laughed, or smiled, chances are you were together with other people.

The more people meet, the happier they are.

The happiness tip is to make the effort to speak to your neighbours, meet them for coffee, help them in the shared garden, or just stop to chat next time you see them.

Digital Detox

Encourage your friends and family to have tech-free periods during the week, avoid the temptation to check your phone and detox digitally.

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2. Money

There is a correlation between income (or money) and happiness.

Lack of money is a cause of unhappiness.

The presence of money can create happiness, but only to an extent – the more we have of something, the less we derive joy from it. That’s why some people or countries get richer, but not necessarily happier. 

Expect the Hedonic Treadmill

Take time to enjoy the journey towards your goal, but also understand that achieving your goal will not fulfill you completely.

We continuously raise the bar for what we want or what we need to feel happy. There is no single thing that will quench our ambitions forever.

Hence the pursuit of happiness needs to be replaced by the happiness of pursuit.

Focus on the journey, not the destination. 

Expectation Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Winnie-the-Pooh, a big fan of eating honey, realized that there is a moment just before he begins to eat, which is better than eating itself. In some circumstances, expectation is a more significant source of joy than achievement. 

Happiness tips: 

• Pay now, consume later. If you are buying an experience, make sure it is a bit into the future so that you can look forward to it. 
• Don’t keep up with the Joneses. If we earn money and spend it on stuff we don’t need only to impress people, then we are not getting closer to happiness.
• Richer doesn’t mean happier. Several countries have emulated others to grow rich, but that hasn’t made them any happier. One of the reasons is inequality, where most increase in wealth and income goes to only a small set of people. Greed is not good.
• De-couple Wealth and Happiness. The ancient Greek stoic and philosopher Epictetus said, ‘Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.’
• Buy experiences, not things. See experiences as investments for creating happy memories.
• Link things with experiences. Save big purchases until a noteworthy occasion, so that the item is worth more than what is on the price tag because it embodies your memory of the time.
• Buy meaningful experiences that are part of something bigger, something that takes you closer to your passion.
• Develop inexpensive habits that can bring happiness
  • Reading
  • Create a smile file or gratitude journal. Once a week, write a few things that you are grateful for and how they positively impacted your life.
  • Establish a free-fun fellowship. In this, each friend takes a turn at planning an inexpensive activity, and you all meet up to spend time together doing it. The aim is to remove the power of money when it comes to happiness.

While money can create happiness to an extent, here’s the kicker.

Research indicates that ‘being happy’ can also lead to a higher income – happy people are likelier to get a degree, find a job, and get promoted. 

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3. Health

Health is wealth.

Good health allows us to play, enjoy life, and seek adventures.

Happiness tips:

• Get on your bicycle. Cycling keeps us active and healthier. Research shows it has a preventative effect on diabetes, osteoporosis, and depression.
• Walk more. Say no to escalators, walk over to a colleague instead of calling or emailing, meet friends for a walk instead of coffee, or take the scenic route.
• Move more each day. Build more movement into your daily routine. Park farthest from the supermarket or office and walk, have a meeting while walking, take the stairs.
• Switch modes of transport. Studies have found that people who switch from driving to walking or cycling experienced improvements in their physical and mental-wellbeing even if the commute now took longer!
• Find and explore a mountain, forest, or other natural landscape. Visit the same spot periodically over a year and be mindful of how the landscape changes each time.
• Brain-brushing. In some Bhutanese schools, teachers and students start and finish their day with ‘brain-brushing,’ a short mindfulness exercise.
• Start talking about mental health. Next time you ask someone how they are doing, take a real interest in the answer, and do not accept ‘fine.’

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4. Freedom

“No people can be truly happy if they do not feel that they are choosing the course of their own life”

World Happiness Report 2012

Human Freedom Index identifies 70 indicators of freedom – freedom of expression, freedom of movement, religious freedom, and so on.

However, the most critical aspect of freedom to me is time. Read more in my article on Time: An Abundance of Life.

Life is defined by time. Time is a finite, non-replenishable, and perishable resource. It is also the only resource that is granted to all humans evenly – all of us get 24 hours a day and 365 days a year (366 this year for those finicky about such things).

Three key areas have an impact on how you spend your time: work, family/relationships, and commute.

Happiness tips:

• Freedom of time and place. Cultural and other enablers that focus on meeting deadlines and punctuality for meetings, but provide flexibility of when and where you work from can increase the levels of happiness.
• Work-life balance. Family-friendly policies, legal or organization-specific, are another source of happiness.
• Start a business. Opportunity to be your own boss is a source of happiness at work and outside of work. Entrepreneurs usually work longer hours than employees, but they experience plenty of freedom – freedom to pursue a passion, freedom to arrange work around their family, or freedom to say ‘no’ to a client. 
• Emails, meetings, and managers. Introduce ‘do-not-disturb’ initiatives – for example, daily 1 or 2 hours to focus on work at hand without any interruptions.
• Commute. Studies show that happiness seems to decrease for every mile a commuter travels, with worst-effects in journeys lasting around an hour to an hour and a half. 
• Time-saving hacks
  • Cook more than you need
  • Make use of waiting time. Five minutes here and 15 minutes there can add up to a significant amount of time. Decide in advance what you will use that time for (do the bills, read a book, etc.) 
  • Two in one. Combine socializing with exercise by going for a run with your buddy.
  • Digitally detox. Have device curfews or use apps that limit the time spent on social media.
  • Parkinson’s law. ‘Work expands to fill the time available.’ Be more efficient by limiting the time you have for specific activities. Don’t just schedule a start time, but schedule an end time as well.

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5. Trust

People who trust other people are happier.

When there is trust, you don’t need to write up a contract for every simple transaction, a deal is a deal, and your word is your word.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember everything.

Mark Twain

Happiness tips:

• Encourage praise among co-workers to increase trust. Employee of the week is the one who made their colleagues shine or told other people about their achievements.
• Improve Social skills. The ‘lost wallet’ experiments assess the trustworthiness of countries and cultures by leaving wallets with money in public places. It shows that empathy over selfishness, co-operation over competition, meeting the commitments made voluntarily, all go towards creating trust. 
• Raise happiness. Education system that teaches children social skills – togetherness, empathy, collaboration, and that success is not a zero-sum game (not everything is about competition and winning).
• Trust is cheap. People working in organizations where trust is lacking, work is associated with words like ‘control,’ ‘monitor,’ and ‘bureaucracy’ and with rules and regulations. Studies have shown that empowering and trusting employees results in improved employee satisfaction, productivity, and also customer satisfaction. It also costs less. 
• Reduce economic inequality. Inequality results in competition, anger, resentment, and mistrust. Countries with more economic equality have a higher proportion of people saying ‘most people can be trusted.’
• “Chimpanzee Politics”. This book, by a primatologist, argues that we are physically wired to react strongly to inequality. See the videos on social media about an experiment with grapes and monkeys. To improve long term trust and happiness, we need to develop the understanding that our happiness depends not only on how our family fares but also on how our neighbours’ children fare. We need to judge our societies, not by those who finish first, but how we lift back up those who have fallen back. 

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6. Kindness

Find ways to bring happiness to others through acts of kindness as this proverb suggests.

If you want happiness for an hour – take a nap.

If you want happiness for a day – go fishing.

If you want happiness for a year – inherit a fortune.

If you want happiness for a lifetime – help someone else.

Chinese Proverb

Happiness tips:

1. Celebrate World Kindness day on 13 November. Get your friends and colleagues together, and decide how you can celebrate kindness.
2. Volunteer. Find ways you can volunteer to help others. Improve your community and develop your sense of purpose.
3. Smile and chat with strangers. Hand out smiles and friendly remarks. They are free.
4. Don’t ask, just help. Bypass the ‘let me know if there is anything I or we can do’ thing. You know what to do.
5. Become a RAKtivist (Random Acts of Kindness Activist). Here are five simple acts of kindness:
   • Leave a gift on someone’s doorstep.
   • Learn the name of someone you see every day. Greet that person by name.
   • Make two lunches. Give one away.
   • Talk to the shy person who’s by themselves at a party or the office.
   • Give someone a genuine compliment. 

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Happiness is a Journey

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. 

But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. 

But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.

Nelson Mandela

This quote, about finding more hills to climb after climbing a great hill, always reminds me that

Happiness is a journey; it is not a permanent state.

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Recommended Books on Happiness

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Read my summary of this book.

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