The Similarities Between Trust and Happiness

Trust thought for today - the intriguing similarities between trust and happiness I saw in the literature and referred to in passing in my report.

Reinforced by this interesting & sometimes irritating episode of The Moral Maze:

* Happiness/trust 'the more we seek it, the less we seem to be able to find it'. It is more likely to result from a focus on the good of others and on a greater purpose than pursuit for its own sake.

* It's 'bigger than you', it is something important to society not just a personal goal to be pursued for your own ends.

* Beware of making it a 'magical solution to the problems of our time'. The problems of unhappiness/distrust need addressing for happiness/trust to be a result.

* The happiness/trust 'industry' and its metrics and indicators - 'who's up who's down' is a 'gimmick' and mainly about people reducing it to saleable concepts for their own commercial or egotistical purposes (ahem!).

* This 'professionalisation/commercialisation' fails to listen to what people say it is for them: eg happiness 'seeing my son smile'. Trust - 'why not, just because I do' is often not allowed because it can't be measured or catalogued under biases and heuristics.

* Is trust, like happiness, 'defined by a specific set of people who have the choice to stop and smell the flowers'. Instead of self-reflection & a focus on structural and social drivers of the causes of unhappiness/distrust?

* Explore instead of measuring happiness 'identify the sources of distress' in society and respond to these; similarly considering the actions associated with lack of trustworthiness of individuals and institutions to trust, rather than measuring trust.

Both require 'different governance structures' to listen to the needs of others and respond to those, rather than simply observe, measure and map.

I remember when researching and writing, I could have done a project just on this, but it is one line in my report! I also compared it to love❤️. For another day.

Read the full article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wjly