Probably most of us work hard for success because success needs to be happy. Also, you might teach your child to study hard to get a good job and be happy.  I used to think so and did it.  However, Shawn Achor presented the opposite concept.  Being happiness first, then you become happy.  Because it is difficult to succeed everybody equally.  Even you succeed, you want to achieve more success. On the contrary, you become happy first, you can broaden your perspective and find the various approaches to have success. He explained that the recent studies proved it.  It was a huge impact for me like Copernicus’s  conception of the universe with his heliocentric theory of planetary movement. However, it recalled my experience in Central America.  About 20 years ago, I arrived at a small village in Honduras as a member of an agricultural development project. At that time Honduras was the poorest country in Central America. Before working in that country, I imagined that the people there were in the despairing situation. However, when I visited the village, they were smiling and children were playing joyfully.  They were actually in a tough situation economically but they looked happy. I was shocked and thought “What should I do here? They are already happy”.  After 20 years, now I am sure that happiness is mostly internal matter not by the environmental factors. If you have t the certain mindset, even in the difficult situation, you can be happy.  If it is proved scientifically, we might change the strategy of international cooperation.  We focused on economic growth as development cooperation until now, however, we might have a different approach.  Now I have a question. Can we teach how to be happy beside economic growth?  If so, we can design a new type of project or training.  If we can, we will also offer the project and the training to developed countries.  We are economically succeeding but mentally, I do not think so.  Probably, I should go that village in Central America again and learn something from them.

Photo: Emptiness & Happiness by Manjunatha Narasimhaiah