As we were walking home from school holding hands, my seven-year-old granddaughter explained that she was happy – literally so! Why do you think so, I asked her. Very confidently she replied, “Because I have lots of friends and a family that loves me very much”. Then I thought, wow, she’s got it right.

Children are actually happier because their worries are practically non-existent. A worldwide Children’s Society study (2015) on children’s happiness revealed that Colombia has the second highest number of happy children, after Romanians.

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However, research conducted in Spain indicates that one in ten Spanish children is unhappy. The reason? The shortage of parental time and busy daily schedules, which is actually a widespread worldwide fact.

Talking about happiness in a convulsive and complex world is like talking about a sea without shores. It seems almost utopian, especially when we believe that happiness is based on material and tangible things.

Throughout history, happiness has been the highest aspiration of human beings. For philosophy it is its main objective. For the sake of clarification, I bring up thinkers who have dealt with the subject.

Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, defines it “as that which accompanies the realization of the proper end of every living being”. A kind of activity of the soul for the benefit of one’s own talent through virtue -the areté of the Greeks-.

Happiness is a kind of life based on what is proper to us, that which differentiates us from irrational beings -goodness, conscience-.

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The Epicureans defined it as the absence of pain, its main characteristic being the identification of happiness with pleasure; the Stoics, peace and tranquility; the Buddhists, achieving “enlightenment”; Spinoza, the search for that which makes us grow and the ability to avoid deprivation; Nietzsche divided happiness into two: that of the mediocre -a comfortable life without problems, similar to those who only want to live tasty-, and that of those who set themselves ambitious challenges and strive to achieve them.

For 21st century happiness guru Tal Ben-Shahar, a pioneer of positive psychology at Harvard, “being happy is something that should be taught in schools like math or language”.

The pursuit of happiness is a relevant topic in present and future societies, in fact, there is an international day dedicated to happiness and a ranking of the happiest countries.

Thanks to thinkers and scientists, today it is possible to know that happiness, like other emotions, arises from stimuli that provoke chemical reactions in our brain and it is becoming more and more common to have data available to measure it.

Recent studies indicate that there are habits and daily actions that we can incorporate into our lives to release hormones related to happiness.

According to experts, people with strong, healthy relationships live longer, achieve life goals and enjoy physical health, which has a positive impact on happiness. They conclude that even more than wealth, because people classified as “happy” had in common the quality of their relationships.

That’s where I leave you!

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