Pooling the views of many experts on the useful ways to increase happiness, Buettner et al. (2020, Abstract) conclude that ‘Policy strategies deemed the most effective and feasible are: (1) investing in happiness research, (2) support of vulnerable people and (3) improving the social climate, in particular by promoting voluntary work and supporting non-profits. Individual strategies deemed most effective are: (a) investing in social networks, (b) doing meaningful things and (c) caring for one’s health.’ Public policies for happiness promotion are discussed in Chap. 14 below. Here, we discuss what individuals may do.

While we have mentioned the four F’s of happiness (faith, fitness, family, friends) above, these may be increased to 12 factors from A to L, as important factors for and ways one may increase happiness, as discussed below.

First, A is for attitude. An appropriate, positive attitude to life is very important for happiness for oneself as well as for the society. Though happiness is the only thing of intrinsic value (Chap. 5), pursuing only one’s own happiness is not the appropriate attitude. This is true not only socially speaking, but also for the individual as well. We have already discussed before that we are born and brought up having happiness in helping others and contributing to the society. It also increases our self-esteem. Confucius said, ‘A gentleman is honest and magnanimous; a villain often feels sad’. Being good to the society typically also brings happiness to oneself. This is consistent with modern happiness studies showing that those less purely self-interested, and are willing to help others and providing uncompensated services, are happier (Frey and Stutzer 2002; Bruni and Stanca 2008; Lu et al. 2020; Son and Padilla-Walker 2020).

B is for balance (moderation, the golden mean). This principle is applicable to many areas. Even on the attitude towards time, a balanced view is positive for happiness (Zhang et al. 2013). Even towards the enemies, we should not be excessive; even towards our children, we should not dote on them too much. We should have sufficient exercise, but not too much. Professional sports persons usually do not live long. We should work well, but not too long hours. Excessive working hours are very detrimental to happiness; excessive leisure time is also not good (Haller et al. 2013; de Zeeuw 2018; Lee et al. 2020; Noda 2020). Harmonious (instead of obsessive) ‘passion for work may play a salient role in individuals’ well-being’ (Yukhymenko-Lescroart and Sharma 2019).

Decades ago, I had a colleague who was a workaholic. We share a same secretary who told me that he was working 12 h a day and 7 days a week. This is more than twice my weekly hours of work. True, if we take the total time I am in my office plus the time I work at home over the weekend, it adds up to be more than 50 h. However, some of the office hours are spent on personal affairs like emailing my daughters, my investment agents, etc., not to mention watching beautiful girls on the computer! Haha! Taking off those hours will leave no more than about 40 h. Working in excess of 80 h a week, that colleague of mine not only caused serious family problems at home (I was even called upon to help resolve some), but he eventually died young at 55. The excessive hours did not pay off, even in terms of the narrow result of productivity, not to mention the toll on happiness and his life. (On the desirability of living a balanced life, especially between doing and being, and between relationship and solitude, see Littman-Ovadia 2019. For the importance of modesty, as the balance between arrogance and self-abasement, see Zheng and Wu 2020: ‘The more modest you are, the happier you are’.)

C is for confidence. One should have confidence in oneself, and be confident about the future. This is neither being arrogant, nor being blindly optimistic. Rather, it is being cautiously optimistic, recognizing both the subjective (conditions of oneself) and objective factors. Do not have an inferiority complex about oneself. Every person has some advantages and some shortcomings. For example, you may think that I am able to publish many books and papers in top journals, but I also have many aspects much lower than the average. For one thing, I am only 1.6 m in height. After fully grown up, one cannot increase one’s height any more. Thus, just take this as given and not to worry about it. I do not aspire to be a basketball star; this is not a problem. As a child, we lived close to the seaside. We went to play in the water since about the age of 3–4. Many of my fellow children of about the same age soon learned how to swim quite well. They could then swim out to the deeper parts of the sea and stay there for an hour or so before coming back. I could not even float. Then another group of younger children joined us. Long after the second or third groups were able to swim to the deeper parts before I managed to float. I never dare to swim to areas deeper than my chest. But again there is no problem as I do not aspire to be an Olympic swimming champion. I started drinking tea and coffee since a young child. However, I could not tell the difference between tea of good and low quality; I could only tell the difference between tea and coffee! Haha! Only until my early 40’s, more than three decades since first drinking, that I started to appreciate the difference between high and low qualities, in tea only. Not yet in coffee! At least not much. Also not yet in wines. I find about half of the cheaper types of wines taste good and half not good; and the same proportion for wines 10 times more expensive.

D is for dignity. A person should live with dignity and not doing things bad. Doing bad things may lead to some financial gains in the short run, but losing the more important dignity. Even if others do now know, you know yourself and hence has a lower self-esteem, not to mention the worry of being found out and penalized accordingly. However, the principle of balance, insistance on dignity should not be too extreme. Quite often, stepping back a few steps allows much more scope for both sides. Accepting what is unavoidable saves many troubles. There is no need to quibble on every detail.

E is for engagement. We are a social animal and are born to derive high happiness engaging in interpersonal relationships. Sharing our happiness with family members, friends, relatives, colleagues, etc., we increase, instead of reducing our happiness, while they also typically are also happy sharing it; on the other hand, talking over your sorrows with some good friends usually reduces your unhappiness dramatically, while your friends also feel happy being able to help you reducing your sorrows. Due to our social nature, engaging in socially useful activities usually increases our happiness. According to data from World Values Survey, happiness is highly related to time engaged in interpersonal relationships and voluntary social services (Bruni and Stanca 2008), while the termination of such relationships (divorce or parents’ divorce) has very large negative effects on happiness (Helliwell 2003; Dolan et al. 2008).

Engagement is not confined to that on social activities. Just being engaged in doing activities one is interested in may also increases happiness (Lyubomirsky 2008; Lyubomirsky and Layous 2013; Lauzon and Green-Demers 2020).Footnote 1 However, many may have spent too much time just watching TV. As this is an easy way to spend time and usually immediate rewards at negligible costs, many may then fail to engage in other activities that are really more rewarding in the long run (Frey et al. 2007). However, Bayraktaroglu et al. (2019) show that watching TV does not reduce happiness the next day, but reduced positive affect increases TV watching the next day.

F is for family and friends. As we have discussed these in the previous chapter, we will skip to G.

G is for gratitude. People in China have a very long tradition of emphasizing the importance of showing gratitude to those who have helped us and repay them when possible. ‘A drop of favor should be repaid with a whole spring of water’. The importance of gratitude for happiness is also supported by modern happiness studies (e.g. McCullough et al., 2002; Ruini & Vescovelli 2013; Ahrens & Forbes, 2014; Green et al., 2019; Bohlmeijer et al., 2020); ‘feelings of gratitude were positively related to well-being at the within-person level’ (Nezlek et al., 2019, Abstract); ‘gratitude may not only have a negative influence on depression, but may also counteract the symptoms of depression by enhancing a state of peace of mind’ (Liang et al. 2020, Abstract).

We should be grateful not only for those who helped us, but also, if not more so, to those who brought us into being, our parents who typically also have fed and educate us, and sacrificed much for us in many other ways. Those who believe in God should also be grateful to God. Those not believing in God should read Ng (2019). In this short book, using five compelling axioms, I prove that God evolved in the wider universe and created our sub-universe about 13.8 billion years ago in the Big Bang (or one identical to it). This explains what Science and Religion have no answer. Science argues for the Big Bang but cannot explain how it came from; religion believes that God created all, but cannot explain how God came about. This little book explains the origins of both our universe and God, its creator. It even answers the question: How came the wider universe? It answers all these questions in ways consistent with what we know now and also logically consistent.

H is for health. We have already discussed this a bit (fitness, one of the 4 F’s of happiness). Here, I want to add some more, starting with correcting this mistake: I know the importance of exercising to keep healthy, but I have no time. Instead, for those not lacking time, exercising is not very important; for those not having enough time, exercising is very important.

Compared with no exercising, if you spend half or one hour everyday exercising, you may sleep less by the same amount of time and still wake up fresher the next day, being able to do better quality work and enjoy life better the next day. Thus, exercising actually does not take up time, but earns you time. This is especially so in the long run, as keeping healthy allows you to live a longer life. Studies show that, before an excessive level, each hour of exercise prolongs you live by 2–3 h. The positive effects of exercising on health is clear (Huang and Humphreys 2012; Ruegsegger and Booth 2018; Zhang and Chen 2019). The positive relationship between health and happiness is likely mutual: being healthy increases happiness; being happy is also good for your health (Kim et al. 2013; Trudel-Fitzgerald et al. 2014; Boehm et al. 2017; Lambiase et al. 2015; Martin-Maria et al. 2016; Makki and Mohanty 2019; Steptoe 2019).

Apart from exercising, a healthy lifestyle is also very important for health and happiness, including health food, enough sleep, and a positive attitude (see A for Attitude above) are all relevant. Blanchflower et al. (2013) confirm the general belief that eating more fruits and vegetables are good for health; the optimal amount is no less than seven serves (an apple is one serve) a day (Cf. Mujcic and Oswald 2016). Having enough sunlight is also good for health and happiness (Kaempfer and Mutz 2013).

On healthy food, many years ago, people were very scared of food with high cholesterol. I had a colleague at Monash University who stopped all food with high cholesterol after his hospitalization on some heart problem. A few years later, we heard that he was sent back to hospital for having too few cholesterols. Then, a distinction was made between good and bad cholesterol. However, since a few years ago, even bad cholesterol is OK. Eggs including egg yoke with very high cholesterol are now health food. So is fat meat. In fact, Taubes (2007) argued more than a dozen years ago that cholesterols and fat are not the problem; rather excessive sugar and inadequate fibers are the culprit. This is why sweet potatoes are now on top of the list of heath food.

Around a century ago, at least in Southern China, sweet potatoes are the staple food of the poor; only the rich can afford the more expensive rice. As my mother told us, when some poor people get financially better off, they changed to eating rice. After a few days or weeks, they developed constipation or even haemorrhoids (piles). They then had to change back eating sweet potatoes. Thus they said, ‘We are born to eat sweet potatoes [cheap food]!’ Of course, it is not the case that some people are born to eat cheap food. Rather, it is the lack of fibers. Even if you can afford it, there is no need to eat and use expensive things; extra money may be donated for altruistic purposes. (On how to do altruism effectively, see MacAskill 2015).

This reminds me about the true story about chicken and lobsters. In the Nineteen Century, lobsters were so plentiful that they were fed only to the poor and prisoners. Prisoners demanded and servants asked for clauses limiting the feeding of lobsters to them at no more than three times a week. The lobster was considered among the least desirable foods, ‘a garbage meat fit only for the indigent, indentured, and incarcerated’. (See, e.g. Wallace 2005.) In contrast, chicken was a delicacy affordable only by the rich. Now, with lobsters becoming very scarce and chicken cheap, lobsters become food for the rich people, and chicken as the food for the poor. To some extent, this suggests that if extreme poverty is avoided (no one is starving or very under-nourished), some inequality is probably not too serious a matter. Letting the rich pay high prices for items like lobsters, first-class tickets, and luxury skyboxes (for watching sports) helps to some extent to pay for the costs of supply and hence allows others to pay less for other items.

I is for ideal. Every person should have one or more ideals. When a high-school student, my ideal then was to help establish a communist society, believing that it was a more just and happy society. Three events helped me to see the naivety of this belief. First, despite my initial interests in physics, maths and philosophy, I chose to study economics at university, believing that that knowledge would be more relevant in building a new society. However, the study of economics helped me see that capitalism has its rationale, though it may need some government functions to increase equality and deal with environmental disruption. Secondly, the Sino-Soviet dispute over the period about 1958–69 revealed to me further the conceptual and practical problems of communism. Thirdly, the failure of the Great Leap Forward Movement in China over 1958–60 that turned into a great leap downward, and the Cultural Revolution over 1966–76 that bestowed a tremendous amount of hardship on the people, made me realize the impracticability of communism. I thus gave up fighting for communism completely and devote myself to teaching and research.

Not all persons need to have grand ideals which typically turn out impracticable anyway as in my case. It is good to have realistic ideals that are likely realizable. For example, one may wish to be healthy, happy, and successful in career. Some may aspire to be a great entrepreneur or a great scientist. Ideals may be quite high, but should avoid being too unrealistic. If it proves to be unrealizable, one should adjust accordingly. If you cannot be a great entrepreneur, being a successful business person is also good; if you fail to become another Einstein, being a good teacher is also good. As long as you do not cause serious damages to others or the society, and can be happy doing what sustain your life, you should regard yourself as being successful in having largely fulfilling the originally higher ideals.

Having ideals, one will derive much happiness in working towards the achievement of these ideals. Even in my case where I had to give up the original unrealistic ideal, I was very happy while working for it.

In choosing what ideals one should have and work for, three important points should be taken into consideration. First, you should look at your own conditions, your advantages and disadvantages. If you are as short as me, do not aspire to be a basketball champion. Everyone has some comparative advantages. Develop in these directions. Secondly, you must look at the objective situation and find out where you may succeed with your subjective conditions. Thirdly, you must choose something that is beneficial both to yourself and to the society (especially including people around you), usually both financially and happiness wise. Working only for others with no self-benefit is difficult to persist for long, and also not effective. Doing what benefits only yourself but not others will also not last long and achieve big. In the long run, it will usually be counter-productive even to your own interests. Doing something good for both oneself and others will likely promote mutual interaction, complementation, and assistance, and will lead to many more fruitful results.

J is for joyful. Whether a person is usually joyful or not, may to some extent decided by the inborn characters and the experience in one’s growing environment and interpersonal relationship. However, one’s characters are not completely unchangeable (Boyce et al. 2013). To some extent, we may also try to make ourselves more joyful. One simple way is to avoid going to places that may make you sad, or persons who may make you unhappy. On the other hand, we may do something we enjoy, read something interesting, or watch something amusing. Also, remind oneself to be more joyful and not worry unnecessarily.

K is for kindness. Mencius said, everyone has compassion/kindness, justice, respect/courtesy, wisdom (仁、义、礼、智); these capabilities are in born. At least, there are large inborn components, though not precluding influences of nurture. These capabilities are beneficial to interpersonal cooperation good for our survival.Footnote 2 Partly because of the inborn nature and partly because of long-run interaction effects, being kind to others will usually make us happy ourselves. On the beneficial effects of loving-kindness, even just thinking about it, see Gentile et al. (2020). We should be kind not only to our fellow human beings, but also to other animals that may have affective feelings of happiness and pain (the final Chap. 16).

L is for love. We have already discussed this in reference to family and marriage above.