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After more than six years of cutting-edge research involving renowned institutions such as Harvard, Gallup, and Baylor University, along with significant funding from the Fetzer Institute, the three Templeton Foundations, and others, it was a joy to attend the first public event of the Global Flourishing Study (GFS) at the Gallup headquarters.

Building on previous explorations of happiness and well-being dating back to the 1970s, the GFS stands apart due to its distinctive characteristics: a multidimensional approach, a focus on spirituality, a global reach, a large sample size of more than 200,000 people in 22 countries, an open science platform, and a robust longitudinal scope. Coupled with the publication of nearly a hundred peer-reviewed papers in prestigious journals such as Nature, these attributes herald a paradigm shift in the study of human flourishing and its far-reaching societal implications.

One of the cultural and psychological impacts of the currently regnant materialist worldview is its polarized posture that categorizes the world into comparable presences and absences of the things we need to survive. As Soren Kierkegaard, in his most popularly paraphrased quote, counsels, “Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced,” which many of us forget, caught up in the intricacies of the endless demands of everyday life. It often slips our notice that life isn’t just a relentless series of tasks aimed at mostly material status and transient happiness, as if our existence were some retail experience where we bargain for bits of progress. Lucky are those who find the time to reflect on what’s essential and question why they do what they do. Rather than weaving a sense of fulfillment, our daily routines merely shuttle us from one anxious landscape to the next — an incessant cycle that leaves us scrambling for quick fixes, often in the form of potent medications. But maybe we’re missing the point entirely. Perhaps we’re meant to expand beyond the narrow straits of efficiency, to awaken to a fuller, richer sense of being — one that isn’t measured by checklists or soothed by prescriptions, but by a more profound realization of our potential to flourish.

The GFS study established that human flourishing is not neatly tied to the size of a country's GDP. We do not need to focus on pathological questions that measure the absence of one aspect or another (and, therefore, the attendant remedies). Middle-income countries that lack many amenities found in wealthy countries performed better in terms of meaning, purpose, and relationships. Good news for folks of a certain age: older people enjoy higher well-being than their spring chicken counterparts as they face societal and personal barriers, including mental health issues. Married individuals and children who grew up in secure families report greater well-being. Perhaps not a surprise: religious and spiritual people flourish better globally.

The early results of the GFS are, quite frankly, heartening — proof that taking a multidimensional approach can indeed capture a fuller, more nuanced picture of flourishing. The study is methodologically rigorous and open to all who wish to examine the data or publish more articles. Those who initially deemed the study a bit too ambitious have been proven wrong. Sometimes, it turns out, a bolder, more sweeping action is precisely what’s needed to dislodge entrenched paradigms.

Being part of this journey feels less like work and more like an emergent, powerful movement. I hope the need moves towards the flourishing of not just human beings centrally, but also others who share life with us. Here, philanthropy holds a catalytic force, uniquely positioning it to venture into the uncharted dimensions of human flourishing and strategically shape the pathways through which humans and all other members of the family of life co-thrive.

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