How to be the President of Joy we need
Original Medium Post HERE
This blog is available in five different languages. To select your preferred language, simply click on the yellow button located in the lower right-hand corner of your screen.
— by Justin Pasquariello and Jitendra Vyas
An animal President of Joy, generated through several iterations with Microsoft Copilot
Why is joy having a moment?
All the talk about joy in this presidential campaign is responding to several real crises. Our next Commander-in-Chief must spearhead a significant increase in American joy (emotional wellbeing (or happiness) x time).
Between 2000 and 2022, the American age-adjusted suicide rate increased 36%; overdose deaths grew more than 400%. During the pandemic, “youth depression and anxiety doubled.” Happiness has been trending down among US adults since the 1990s; among our adolescents for more than 15 years.
As happiness was falling, the US was one of two nations Polity demoted, from “full democracy” to “flawed democracy”, between 2006 and 2017; our democracy continues to decline. Democracy boosts happiness, and perhaps even more strongly, national happiness sustains democracy; unfortunately, their declines can be mutually reinforcing too.
— —
To solve these joy crises, we need a strengthened mental health system. However, a medical approach alone will not suffice. To be healthy, we need access to nutritious food, opportunities for exercise, and education about smoking — in addition to doctors and hospitals. Similarly, to be mentally healthy, we need communities and policies that promote mental and emotional wellbeing.
Whether or not government is intentional about it, governing and policy significantly affect joy. Our government must take those impacts seriously, and develop a joy policy agenda.
An effective joy policy agenda will produce benefits beyond improved mental health and strengthened democracy. Happiness produces increased lifetime earnings and economic growth; is strongly correlated with social capital (which improves perceptions of community safety); and helps people live longer and healthier.
— —
— —
Our next President must launch this joy agenda by establishing a Cabinet Secretary of Joy. This Secretary of Joy will lead their team through three key strategies.
— —
1) Measuring individual and community joy.
Our federal government should collects happiness data to inform policy, just as we do with financial and economic data.
There are examples to follow. Bhutan has pursued Gross National Happiness for nearly 50 years, enabled by robust GNH measurement. Somerville, Massachusetts has been nationally recognized for measuring happiness since 2011. Recently we at East Boston Social Centers collaborated with MassINC and the Shah Family Foundation on Boston’s first citywide joy survey.
— —
2) Scoring proposed policies for joy impact.
Bhutan, Somerville, and East Boston Social Centers use our data to inform policy priorities and recommendations.
Happiness data led Somerville to sponsor festivals like “What the Fluff,” which celebrates the city’s marshmallow crème invention — and helps build social connections. Many jurisdictions are experimenting with limitations on smartphone and social media in schools to boost student mental health and learning.
Similarly, the federal government can make policy choices to support joy. The Office of Joy can score all policy proposals just as the Congressional Budget Office does. If we pilot new policies, like a four-day workweek, the Office of Joy can recommend design features (like a Civic Wednesday) to maximize the joy impact. The Office of Joy also should fund evidence-informed pilot projects, so we can measure the joy impact and scale approaches that work.
— —
3) Convening a multidepartmental and multisector coalition to advance a joyful agenda.
Just as First Lady Michelle Obama engaged every sector for Let’s Move — and helped reduce obesity among 2–5 year olds across the country, so the Office of Joy can convene departments across government, and actors across sectors, to develop and implement strategies for national joy.
The Declaration of Independence not only declared the pursuit of happiness an inalienable right, but also said, “It is the Right of the People . . . to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Yet in the quarter-millennium since, the federal government has done almost nothing to measure or pursue joy. Our next President must change that. For our democracy, health, and wellbeing, we urge our next President to truly be “the president of joy.”
— —
— Justin Pasquariello is the Executive Director of the East Boston Social Centers, where they are leading a movement to significantly increase joy in community.
— Jitendra Vyas is the Founder & CEO of Technology Ventures, where they are developing a conversational AI platform mybliss for personalizing happiness.