Despite all their marketing, planning, training and conniving, the Disney corporation doesn’t hold a candle to the honest-to-goodness, happiest place on earth: the Kingdom of Bhutan.

While I’ve known about Bhutan and it’s amazing culture since I did research on the country in the 80s, I was recently reminded of this magical place by Michael J Fox himself. Well, not in person, but on his TV special modeled after his book, “Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist“.

Michael’s segment (we’re on a first name basis, you know) on Bhutan was incredible. He personally went to Bhutan to investigate exactly why Bhutan is such a happy, lovely place and to determine what, exactly, the phrase Gross National Happiness means. Like I said, the segment was fantastic. But, I’m not going into detail on that right now.

What the segment really made me think about is how truly important happiness is. I think the importance of happiness in our lives, for our health, for our longevity is pretty much overlooked or ignored by “official” papers and reports focusing on our physical well being. Admittedly, the medicial establishment is coming around, but not very fast.

I think Buddhists have it right. It’s all about happiness. Happiness is why we are here, it’s what we work toward every day of our lives and with every fiber of our being. It’s really the only thing. We just sometimes lose sight of it’s importance when we get caught up in all the other stuff. So, I guess I owe Michael a “thank you” for reminding me to be happy.

I love the saying: Peace, Love and Happiness. But really, isn’t it redundant?

BTW – Wikipedia says Bhutan is only the eighth happiest place on earth. Different view, different reasons.