Comment: The business of being happy

We retailers are in the happiness business. We want our customers to be happy so they will keep coming back, and need our staff to be happy because there is no bigger turn-off than a miserable face.

Our suppliers’ happiness is key too because you can’t build successful long-term relationships any other way. And if our companies are quoted, clearly we want happy shareholders. Some of us are even prepared to give the taxman something to smile about.

In support of my theory that happiness is all that counts I call on two wise old men: the Dalai Lama and Ken Dodd. The exiled Tibetan leader has given the matter 80 years (plus 13 lives) of deep thought, and concluded that “the very purpose of our existence is to be happy”.

Ken Dodd celebrated happiness in a famous song as “the greatest gift that I possess”.

The biggest bar to happiness in the Western world is that we equate it with materialism.

The biggest bar to happiness in the Western world is that we equate it with materialism.

Lord Kirkham

My childhood in a pit village was poor by most measures but I realise, looking back, that I was happy. And even though my parents often struggled financially, they were happy too.

Nevertheless I grew up convinced that a better job, higher wages, a bigger house, extra holidays or a pools win would transform my life for the better.

I imagined how perfect life would be if only I could move my little family out of my parents’ front room. All we wanted was a small terraced house of our own. Then a semi attracted us, followed by a detached residence, then one with a bit of garden for the kids to play in – next stop a mansion.

You know the pattern. It is not just me but our whole society that occupies this same ‘never happy’ boat. Always believing that the next step upwards and onwards will bestow eternal and ecstatic happiness.

It might be more holidays – foreign holidays. A bigger car – two cars. Fine clothes. Maybe a super-yacht?

Whatever we have got, we want more. Where once we aspired to a Timex and the Little Chef, we now want a Rolex and a Michelin-starred restaurant. Plus the latest iPhone, iPad, laptop and smart TV. Even Botox and cosmetic surgery have become must-haves in pursuit of the magical secret that will finally fulfil us.

Having experienced being both poor and rich and a keen observer of the wealthy, I can say with some confidence that money is not necessarily a great advantage hen
it comes to being happy. You might eat and dress a bit better, but true happiness beats in your chest.

So do not imagine that life has swerved by you if sales targets are missed, if you don’t pulverise the competition, get overlooked for promotion or fail to pocket a bonus.

Work out what you like doing best and try to do more of that. Don’t torture yourself pondering the purpose of life. It’s here, it’s now and it won’t be for much longer, so try to enjoy it. And never forget this great advice from the sage of Knotty Ash: “A wise old man told me one time/Happiness is a frame of mind/ When you go to measuring my success/Don’t count my money, count my happiness.”