We Can’t Build a Better Future Without Better Stories

Hope alone won’t save us. But radical imagination could.

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In the early 1970s, Bhutan’s 4th King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, famously declared that ‘Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product.’

Still, as revolutionary as the idea of prioritising societal well-being over economic growth may have seemed at the time — even to nations considered, ahem, far more ‘developed’ — it was hardly new in Bhutanese culture. Take this line from the country’s 1729 legal code, for example:

The purpose of the government is to provide happiness to its people. If it cannot provide happiness, there is no reason for the government to exist.

It’s not surprising, then, that King Wangchuck’s declaration quickly became the foundation of Bhutan’s development model, was written into its democratic constitution in 2008, and led to the creation of detailed Gross National Happiness (GNH) surveys that track citizens’ psychological well-being, health, living standards, and more, ensuring that the country’s laws and policies continue to meet their needs. Bhutan is also the world’s first — and one of only two — carbon-negative countries, absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits. The environment’s well-being is, after all…