Are you happy?
A simple question, yet one that can evoke a wide range of emotional responses depending on context.
I posed that question to Google Gemini, an artificial intelligence program. While noting, “I don’t have feelings or subjective experiences,” the AI acknowledged an unemotional form of usefulness.
“I can say that I’m functioning as intended when I’m able to provide helpful and informative responses,” the AI language model replied. “In that sense, I’m ‘operating optimally’ when I’m assisting you.”
An interesting response echoing the importance of care and benevolence as drivers of happiness, which forms the thematic focus in the newly released World Happiness Report 2025. The report was published March 20 by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Gallup, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and an independent editorial board.
“In this year’s issue, we focus on the impact of caring and sharing on people’s happiness,” the report’s authors write in the executive summary.
“Like ‘Mercy’ in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, caring is ‘twice-blessed’ – it blesses those who give and those who receive. In this report, we investigate both of these effects: the benefits to the recipients of caring behaviour and the benefits to those who care for others.”
The World Happiness Report also includes a happiness index, ranking countries based on factors such as social support, income, health, freedom, generosity and absence of corruption. The index is likely to be informative for pastors and leaders of Christian organizations who are attentive to the emotional and spiritual well-being of their communities.
In response to the report, Christian commentator Jim Denison of the Denison Forum penned an article titled, “Did You Miss the International Day of Happiness?” in which he explores the broader pursuit of happiness in today’s culture.
“We should seek happiness every day, not just on a day chosen arbitrarily by the United Nations,” Denison writes.
“A secularized culture can seek happiness only in the happenings of our world,” he adds, referencing “all-time highs in the U.S.” for anxiety, loneliness and overdose deaths.
“Seeking happiness from happenings doesn’t seem to be a winning strategy,” Denison notes. “The good news is that there’s a far better way.”
Denison contrasts chasing happiness for fleeting emotional highs with the lasting contentment Jesus spoke of in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10). He explains that the Greek word makarios, used by Jesus, “describes a state of well-being that transcends circumstances.”
“There is always something else to buy and own, some new experience to seek, some new status to achieve,” he writes, suggesting that consumerism never satisfies the soul’s deeper longing.
Instead, Denison invites readers to seek the makarios of Christ.
“Will you drink the ‘living water’ his Spirit can give only to those who are surrendered to him?” he asks. “If you do, your life cannot be the same. Nor can the lives you influence. And every day becomes a day not of temporal happiness but of eternal blessing.”
