A measure of happiness

It's impossible to know in this world whether one is truly happy. Most of us who think we are can easily imagine a greater happiness by changing our lot in some way; how many times have you heard people say - 'I'd be happier if I was thinner', 'if I had won the triple trio', 'if I was in love', 'I wasn't in this job'.

The Collins Concise Dictionary defines happy as 'feeling or expressing joy', yet, joy is defined as 'a deep feeling of happiness', so we are no further to understanding whether we have arrived at the blissful state because no one really knows what it is.

How much easier it would be if there was a way to measure happiness, a multiple-choice questionnaire perhaps or a test to measure responses such as how often you smile, how upbeat your walk is, or when you last laughed.

At the end, someone could pronounce: 'Yes, you have nothing to worry about. You are a happy person.' The happiness issue, or at least the state of being unhappy (as much of society seems to be), attracted the makers of the documentary How To Be Happy (Pearl, 8.30pm).

In an attempt to shake off society's lingering feelings of unhappiness and discontent, the BBC's QED team set up its own 'course in happiness', and discovered that indeed there are ways of measuring the sublime state.

The aim of the course, which was created with the help of professionals, was not to treat depression but to take a more fundamental approach to the problem, to change deep-seated beliefs and attitudes.