Engineering sustainable happiness

This paper presents the concept of sustainable happiness as “the pursuit of happiness that does not exploit other people, the environment or future generation” (O’Brien, 2005). The idea of promoting individual, social and community happiness is elaborated as a way of achieving sustainable happiness. By influencing decision making processes, sustainable happiness can guide individuals, communities and politicians in building so called “liveable communities” based on security and stability. It is crucial that sustainable happiness derives from relationships, meaningful work and engagement in a community rather than from pursuing personal objectives and acquiring goods. The key element of it is cooperation between people. It can be supported by nurturing certain virtues and getting engaged in so called “intentional activities” which are aimed at enhancing sustainability. Thus, this mutual work among people can contribute towards increasing global stability. Initiating specific activities and nurturing certain virtues means to engineer sustainable happiness. It can direct people in making ethical decisions and becoming better leaders (Kobza, Schaefer, Brandt and Glawar, 2015). This paper argues that creating such positive mind-sets and developing honesty and mutual trust ultimately lead towards sustainable happiness.