Dr. Alphonsus Obayuwana brings his views on happiness, the greatest gift that we possess…
Each year in March, the United Nations observes an International Day of Happiness and releases its World Happiness Report. For the seventh year in a row, Finland has been declared the “happiest country” in the world. But is a country of residence enough to “guarantee” happiness?
In a word, no, according to Dr. Alphonsus Obayuwana, whose latest book, The Happiness Formula: A Scientific, Groundbreaking Approach to Happiness and Personal Fulfilment, explores five requirements for leading a happy life—not one of which has to do with geography.
For Dr. Obayuwana, the quest to identify the causative factors and objectively quantify degrees of happiness took 30 years of research. He developed a simple equation that can assign a numerical happiness score to any individual, regardless of demographics, using a universal unit of measure called the Personal Happiness Index (PHI).
In The Happiness Formula, he advises readers on where to look and what to look for in the “happiest living human,” provides a brief history of the positive psychology movement, debunks happiness myths, and unveils his novel equation for quantifying happiness.
“Unlike other books about happiness, which are too often filled with dos and don’ts, wishful thinking, and empty aphorisms, The Happiness Formula breaks new ground,” said Dr. Obayuwana. “Despite its title, The Happiness Formula is much more than a mathematical equation for measuring happiness. It is a book about life, the relationship between human hope and happiness, one’s overall feeling of personal satisfaction and subjective well-being.”
In addition to happiness seekers, Dr. Obayuwana wrote the book for those who serve in helping professions, such as life coaches, chief happiness officers, directors of human services, and other types of administrators, policymakers and researchers who are involved in the “business” of human happiness.
The book also guides happiness coaches, as it offers a strong theoretical basis and firm practical structure for happiness coaching, which currently lacks existing guidelines.
The idea of the Personal Happiness Index began in 1982 when Dr. Obayuwana was developing the Hope Index Scale (HIS) to measure human hope and prevent suicide. That scale became adopted by The Coca-Cola Company, General Motors, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and academic institutions across the globe.
In addition to the book, Dr. Obayuwana is available to discuss related topics such as why children are happier than adults, how or why achievements make people happy, and why there’s still lingering unhappiness from the pandemic.
The Happiness Formula: A Scientific, Groundbreaking Approach to Happiness and Personal Fulfillment / ISBN-13: 978-0757325083 / Available from Amazon
