Happiness and Wellbeing for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Personal well-being and happiness have been the focus of human concerns for decades. Bring intentional changes to sustain personal well-being in lives of people requires an understating of the multifaceted interacting formal, non formal, and informal institutional factors that influence human behavior. It has been considered as a founding stone of evolution of the great religions as well as inestimable local traditions and spiritual “pathways”. The search of happiness is debatably the definitive motivating force of each and every action accomplished by individuals, either at individual or communities and national levels. Unfortunately we have not yet understood the meaning of happiness and its relationship to well-being, which is the ultimate force that may direct the path of happiness and sustainable behavior. Sustainable behavior satisfies our needs today, without diminishing the prospects of future generations to do the same. Which behaviors are the most damaging? Why don't we behave more sustainably, and what is the best approach to change? Presently there is no agreement on the nature of personal well-being and sustainable behavior, and almost all the proposed models have elements of subjectivity. Researchers have developed a novel collective ecosystem approach for constructing a basic health representation that may maintain strength across social, economical, environmental
and cultural domains of societies to promote personal well-being. The collective ecosystem approach seems to be consistent with traditional values and provides a basis for personal conduct that may address the need to meet the century's major cultural and ecological challenges. The assumption is to be easily concerned with the natural and modified ecosystems. To arrive at a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, an individual must hold across main dimensions of human well-being such as physical, intellectual, social, emotional, and spiritual attributes. With the help of these attributes, scientists working directly on solving the problems pertaining to the ecosystem may utilize psychological findings that may be helpful in shaping environmental programs. Application of these attributes maintaining the well-being of individuals and community is described and the implications are discussed.