The Dalai Lama, and Tibetan Buddhism in general, are great sources of inspiration for this project. We are drawing specifically from Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness project, which is itself rooted in Tibetan buddhist ideas, and working on getting in direct contact with them.

We are ok with people never being satisfied with their lot in life, but hoping to make the object of that energy, and of that undying human urge for more or better, to be “what can I do to improve the well-being of my community?? Oh look, these are the problems I can work on! These are the people I can work with!” We’re hoping this project puts together that kind of a growing map people can reference… it appeals to the same human impulses as growing GDP but refocuses it to what actually improves our wellbeing.

As Edgar Cahn told me “I looked at every resource I could think of that we use, and the only one I could find that didn’t diminish when it was used was sharing human effort and knowledge.”*

By the way, you might like the book Hooked if you are interested in buddhist takes on happiness and consumption. (http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Buddhist-Writings-Desire-Consume/dp/1590301722/ref=sr_1_5?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285008012&sr=8-5)

Thanks again for your comment!

*paraphrasing from memory

Pleasure, on the other hand, is often measured in numbers like how much money you have, what car you want, etc. The problem with pleasures or this utility function like way of measuring happiness is that you are never really happy. When you get that nice car, the next day you’ve adjusted and you want the next car. No one ever has “enough” money.

The idea that more than enough is too much and the idea that goals and “more more more” isn’t real happiness might also be something to capture.

That’s the only difficulty I see in metrics. It’s hard to say whether one person is happier than another or what exactly it is in the environment, at least in a numerically quantifiable way, is making you happier.