What makes people of country happy? Is it economy? Is it environment? Is it education? Is it government policies? Well all of these do contribute to people’s happiness in a country. But, it is not necessary to be higher economic pace and growth always. People are happier when they don’t experience inequality in distribution of wealth; people don’t mind paying taxes when there is fairness in tax structure. People are happy when government practices transparency in the implementing policies. People want safety, people want welfare, people want good infrastructure, hygiene and people want good quality education.

Corruption undermines government revenue and, therefore, limits the capacity of the government to invest in productive areas.  Corruption distorts the decision-making in public investment projects. It’s been observed the higher the level of corruption in a country, the larger the share of its economic activity that will go subversive, beyond the reach of the tax authorities. Corruption discourages entrepreneurship and innovation, it only encourages inefficiency. It dislocates the human resources.  It creates uncertainty among the citizens. And, it diminishes legitimacy in all walks of life and increases crimes.

In all countries there are rich and poor; but when the levels of inequality are low, and the welfare systems are strong, the citizens are happy. People don’t mind paying higher taxes. Look at Denmark, it ranks 158th in the world and Switzerland is even worse, at 174^th in the World & Economic Ranking standards.

The World Happiness Index Report is an annual publication of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network which contains rankings of national happiness and analysis of the data from various perspectives. The first World Happiness Report was released in April 2012. In a high level meeting of UN well-being and Happiness were defined as new economic paradigms which drew international attention.

The report primarily uses data from the Gallup World Poll. Gallup is a credible polling organization. It is respected highly in media. Nevertheless, all researches including polling have some weaknesses which depend on the various methodologies and details of the poll and its questionnaires. Each research has few statistical limitations. Gallup ensures that each annual report is available to the public to download on the World Happiness Report website.

Happiness index is measured using parameters like Housing, Income, Work, Community, Civic Engagement, Education, Environment, Health, Life Satisfaction, Safety and Life-Work balance etc. Each report is organized by chapters that delve deeper into issues relating to happiness. The chapters also include mental illness, the objective benefits of happiness, the importance of ethics, policy implications which lead to subjective wellbeing. The report is based on how strong a country’s social foundation and social trust is.

Bhutan is one of the Buddhist Kingdoms in the World and so far has preserved much of their culture since the 17th century. Even with globalization, Bhutan follows its Buddhist culture. It allows a certain number of foreigners into the country each year, and the two hundred dollars a day that must be paid by every traveller is a deterrent for many. Internet, television, and western dress were banned from the country up until ten years ago. But over the past ten years globalization has proved to be a challenge to this tiny nation. Things have begun to change, but they are trying to balance things in their own way.

Bhutan is the only country in the world that has a ‘GNH’ which is “Gross National Happiness.” The process of measuring GNH began when Bhutan opened up to globalization. It measures people’s quality of life, and makes sure that both material and spiritual development happen together in its citizen’s lives. Bhutan has balanced it rightly so far.

Happiness is very important to both individuals and as a country. A happy individual is productive and creative. As human beings, although we possess cognitive abilities and are highly “thought” oriented, the quality of our lives is determined by our emotions. A happy human is emotionally strong because happiness protects heart, it strengthens immune system, it helps in combating stress, it found that happy people have fewer aches and pains.

All Nordic countries are among the happiest countries on the planet, as are Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Finland is the winner in 2018 report. Finland’s 5.5 million residents enjoy more forest per square mile than any European country. They have maintained extremely high environmental standards. It’s a peaceful place on Earth. Its immigrants are also happy. The World Happiness Report made particular mention of the consistency in happiness between them and local born residents.

In 2018 World Happiness Index Report, India ranks at 133^rd place with a drop of eleven places since previous report. Pakistan is ranked 75th, while Nepal ranked at 101^st, Sri Lanka at 116th position and Bangladesh at 115^th, Bhutan at 97^th place. If you wonder which is the world’s least happy country? It is Burundi, followed by Central African Republic, South Sudan and Tanzania, due to condemnation of life in Africa.

The Parkinson’s Law is the notion that ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion’. It’s an adage. And it means that people work out their tasks of personal and professional life based on time available. Whatever size is your assignment, if you are given two week for it your will complete it in two weeks and if you are given two months for it, you will take two months for the same job. Time pressure forces people to complete tasks in the given time. If there is no pressure attached to a task then it continues forever to come to an end. Therefore, the more time a person gets to complete a job, the more time he takes to complete it. And, the person gets used to mixing personal and professional work in all the time he gets.  The moment he is assigned more work he starts cribbing about the workload. A task that has to be finished within an hour isn’t perceived important, but a task that’s to be finished in 2 months will become a mental outrage.

Complexity also rises in relation to the allocated time, the more time allocated, the better the perceived quality of the task – well this is what our mind perceives. While people crib about being overburdened with workloads, some people silently complete their own as well as other’s work also. Parkinson Law describes how people keep postponing (try to procrastinate) work till last moment. If only we embrace deadlines and checks, we can do a clear-cut job. It’s always better to force ourselves to work against the clock. When we are given a task without a deadline, it’s always better to set the deadline for self and hold on to it. And, as managers we must learn to always state a deadline while delegating a task, the shorter the deadline – better the outcome.

People always work better under time pressure. They are more focused when a task needs to be completed in constrained time since we all keep procrastinating assignments till the last moment. We vacillate with the time doing some stupidest things. But, if we like a job, we try to complete it in record time.

We need to free our company of the bad effects of Parkinson’s Law. Get more production in order to pay more by reducing or eliminating loss-making and unnecessary tasks and their associated expenses. Hiring more people is seldom the solution to manage inventory, assembly, purchases, sales, accounts etc. Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. This interesting statement was made by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, the famous British historian and author, in 1955. It appeared as the opening sentence in an article for The Economist and later became the focus of one of his books, Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress.

Parkinson made observations on bureaucracy: he said that bureaucracy swells not because workload increases, but because bureaucrats have the capacity and resources that allow for bigger workload even if the workload does not in fact increase. People without any work find ways to increase the amount of imaginary work and therefore add to the size of their administration. Bureaucracy takes a beating because the wrong person fills the wrong role, the role exists only to minimize damage control, or the role swells unnecessarily simply because it can. How true!! We see it all Government departments, post offices, railways, government run hospitals and universities.

Parkinson also observed that organizations give disproportionate credence to trivial issues. One example he quotes is of a committee whose job was to approve plans for a nuclear power plant, spent the majority of its time with futile discussions on relatively trivial and insignificant but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials should be used for the staff bike-shed, while neglecting the most important matter of proposed design of the nuclear power plant itself. We usually assume that those persons working on panels and committees it comprehend it. On the other hand, everyone involved get engaged in endless discussions on a trouble-free issues to show their personal contribution. No wonder, committees appointed by government waste precious time without much outcome.

Let me tell you, Parkinson’s Law does not apply to only time management but it applies to everything in our life.

Our needs keep increasing and if we don’t keep a check on them, they add on. We crave for a big house, a big car, a big bank balance, more and more belongings and so on. When we buy a bigger home, a bigger bag, a bigger cupboard, bigger storage within a short time every nook and corner gets stacked. The bigger the available space, the more junk it can hold. So when people buy bigger houses they need to fill it with most unrequited items, and most of the times people buy big houses even when they don’t need them.  The more money we earn the more money we spend. Only people who want to become rich understand that they need to save money. They break the law and resist the urge of spending unnecessarily. When we start earning more, our needs start expanding so that we spend all of the money that is available. Similarly, our appetite increases when too much food is served on the plate. We end up eating up everything that’s on the plate. Rarely do people resist overeating. The end result of the application of Parkinson’s Law is that we don’t have enough time to do everything that we need to get done; we don’t have any money left over at the end of the month; we are surrounded by clutter; and, since we are constantly overeating, we put on more and more weight which makes us unwell. By the time we realize this fact, it becomes a vicious circle of our life.

It is therefore important to break Parkinson’s Law by setting time, money, storage, and portion limits. If we do this successfully it radically improves our life. We must learn to avoid cluttering our life; we must learn to give away things including books and clothes to de-clutter our home.

Set limits: decide what tasks you need to get done, and then set a limit on the amount of time that is available to perform each task. Set a limit on the amount of money that you have available for spending. Set a limit on how much storage space you really require and have available. Set a limit on the size of your food consumption. Excessive clutter is often a cause of stress and can affect every facet of our life. Clutter can distract you, pull you down, and in general it invites chaos into your life. Break Parkinson’s Law as far as possible.

The other day, I had gone with a friend of mine for a painting exhibition of teenagers. As we stood before a painting titled as “Winning Energy,” which was an awesome abstract painting by a young girl of 13, we both were struck by the brilliance of it. It was a painting portraying a galloping horse; the colors, the expression, the energy and the milieu – everything was awesome. Every detail in the painting stood out and it simply showed the strength of the young painter. My friend and I immediately wrote our remarks in the space provided for visitors. While writing my remarks, I heard another lady speaking some unwanted things about the artist, about her background and her parents. The lady was quite loud. Like me, many other visitors did not appreciate the lady’s remarks.

Is it so difficult to appreciate somebody’s good work? As a society are we so narrow-minded to value good work? Why do people criticize and snub others’ great works – we cannot appreciate other’s good work, good deeds when we are jealous of them. Many times we do not appreciate others due to some petty and insignificant reasons, and trust me; it is our own weakness of not recognizing the goodness in others. Even if we don’t appreciate good work, there are millions of people to appreciate and support those who are doing something good for the society. There are some great artists, physicians, scientists, architects, lawyers, writers, journalists, politicians, and philanthropists who are doing good work and making our living better. I believe not appreciating others for their good work is our own loss.

Remember, when we learn to appreciate others, we never lose anything, instead we become better persons. Appreciating others helps us to enhance our gratefulness and will also boost the doers’ capacity and fortitude.  The world requires good work of people. If we cannot do some good work, at least let’s appreciate other’s good work.

May be you don’t stop when you see an accident on road, but somebody else does stop; maybe you don’t contribute for somebody’s illness, but somebody else does; there are some good hearts who are helping people in emergencies, there are some generous people not very rich but, they still help some patient have better facilities in hospital. We don’t need to be rich to help, we need a strong heart, and we need compassion to lend other a support in their crucial times. If we can’t, let us at least appreciate those who go out of their way to reach out.

Learning to appreciate others’ ideas, sincerity, contribution, good deeds etc enhance one’s life. If we really take some time to ponder on how many people have helped us – done well to us so far in our lives; if we really count all those people and their contribution to our personal growth, and just bless them, it will harness the power of gratitude within us. Please try doing this, and it does feel really good.

Harness the power of gratitude within you. Many people for many good works, good deeds, good art, have never received any appreciation or reward in their lifetime. Do they need to be remembered after they pass away from this world? It is much better to say a word of appreciation while they are living than writing a beautiful biography or carrying a bouquet on their death ceremony. It is simply an act of hypocrisy in my opinion. The dead people – those imparted souls cannot see or smell beautiful flowers or read great biography written on them in their praise. While the person is alive, a simple appreciation is what is required.  Appreciating others and talking good of others after they are dead is one of the weakest attitudes of mankind in this world.

But friends, many people work hard regardless of others appreciation and recognition. But what about those young children who need to be held, who need to be supported, who need to be appreciated and recognised? Let’s not be cruel – let’s appreciate the youngsters to have a better and bright world tomorrow. Let’s harness their talent and their worth – so that we have more innovations and advancement for the future generations of our. Appreciation should come from our heart. If we do not appreciate others from our hearts, it is better not to show our artificial appreciation because it only wastes energy and time.

By appreciating we can boost and harness our relationships with others. A simple ‘Thank you’, Get well soon’’, ‘Happy Birthday’, Congratulation’, ‘Love You’, ‘Care for you’ can make great wonders in relationships. It’s so easy to forget and be aloof by not cheering others, by not loving others, not sympathizing with others, and not appreciating others.

In fact, to recognize others for their small good deeds is so beautiful. This simple tactic can literally transform an important relationship like a marriage, an employment, or friendship. If you constantly are ignorant about seeing the goodness in others, you will see your relationships will slowly deteriorate. Nobody wants to be associated with a self-centered, uncouth person.

It’s not too late to learn to say ‘’thank you’’ whenever someone shows you the least bit of consideration. Doing this will make you feel better and it will encourage others to be more considerate. There are plenty of rude and inconsiderate people out there in the world, but you can be a force for good people by simply spreading some appreciation and gratitude around. When you notice some good work of others, be quick to express appreciation and watch what happens – you will only see kindness, goodness, and uprightness around you.