A dirt poor rickshaw puller in a slum in India once told me that he was the luckiest person alive. His hut was made out of bamboo sticks and plastic tarps, with raw sewage trickling out front, but still, Manoj Singh said he was happy, very happy, in fact. Though sometimes he only had only a few bowls of rice to feed his family, he said "I feel that I am not poor, but I am the richest person in the world."
How could this be? I have friends who can become unhappy by bad cell phone reception or a delayed flight.
For the past six years I have been working on a documentary film about happiness called Happy. The idea came from my friend Tom Shadyac, a filmmaker who had achieved great commercial success with hits like Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar and The Nutty Professor among others. Tom had read an article that compared countries in terms of happiness, and the gist was that while America is one of the richest countries, we are nowhere near the happiest. Tom knew quite well what it was like to have money but not be happy, as he had noticed how much happier his gardener and his housekeeper were than the millionaire movie stars and producers that he worked with every day. So Tom suggested we make a documentary exploring happiness, to discover its true causes.
If you want to know more about the Happy movie and the World Happy Day, please do it here: HappyMovieDay
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