Reflecting in the first post of the new year, I am happy to highlight John de Graaf's essay this morning as I have been spending a lot of time over the past 4 weeks thinking about how do we know how far we are in our hope to be healthy ? how do we know we are heading for happiness?
One such measurement is a survey of well-being recently introduced by The Happiness Initiative, (www.happycounts.org).
The survey measures how well we are doing in ten areas of life:
::: material well-being;
::: physical health;
::: mental health;
::: access to arts, education, recreation and culture;
::: time balance;
::: confidence in government;
::: environmental quality;
::: work satisfaction;
::: community participation
:::social support.
Yesterday I watched the movie The Iron Lady, the interpretation by Meryl Streep of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher's life and what it was like for a woman to lead in a world of men. Then I look at these measures and think about whether she drove towards happiness for herself and as a leader for Great Britain - and I have to conclude that "by her lights, by her values" she did. While as Meryl Streep said after playing her, that it was enlightening for her to play a woman "whom we all thought was rather strange".... I find myself, unexpectedly as a result of this movie, much better able to appreciate Mrs. Thatcher's courage in her convictions and the values she learned from her father, a grocer who ran for mayor and became mayor of his town. Her political calculations are shown (whether or not true to life) as driven by an intense unbending conviction that she was doing the right thing. That basis for an extraordinary level of ambition, also allowed her to gain a level of support that kept her as a long serving leader, unmatched by any man since.
This year I am working to support a team of great leaders working toward the forming of the Asian Women's Leadership University. www.AWLUproject.org
More to come - but if you are in San Francisco, we are meeting this Quarter, let me know if you are interested in being involved in any way.
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