Progress and Hap­pi­ness: What Bhutan’s Farm­ers Teach Us

At break­fast in the Deki Farm­house in Gangtey we sit on mats on the floor, the dish­es set before us in clay pots on woven rings, when our host, almost hes­i­tant­ly, puts down a small jar and asks cau­tious­ly whether we might like to try it: a crunchy spice mix of gar­lic, onions and toma­toes that the fam­i­ly makes them­selves. Lat­er, in the same way, he brings a black paste made from beans from their own gar­den and explains each ingre­di­ent with a care that reveals more than any recipe. The evening before, we had sat with the extend­ed fam­i­ly around the wood stove, eat­ing rice, fresh­ly har­vest­ed broc­coli and the pota­toes you see every­where in the val­ley these days, as the har­vest is being brought in.

Almost every­thing here is home-grown, and yet this farm is no place where time has stood still. A few steps from the house, chill­ies grow in a green­house whose tem­per­a­ture and irri­ga­tion are dig­i­tal­ly con­trolled, and our host fol­lows the data on his smart­phone. The clay pot on the wood­en floor and the screen in his hand are no con­tra­dic­tion for him, any more than the fact that he works the farm while his wife and sis­ter-in-law work at a lux­u­ry hotel in the val­ley. Tech­nol­o­gy does not replace what is their own here; it serves it.

Like Sky and Earth

We under­stand what this means bet­ter after our con­ver­sa­tion with Pas­sang Zam, a farmer who has run a home­s­tay for twelve years and who, with Kar­ma help­ing to trans­late, tells us how her life has changed over twen­ty years. The dif­fer­ence, she says, is like sky and earth. Back then there was no elec­tric­i­ty, no road and no met­al roof; fire­wood was car­ried on your back from the for­est, and any­one want­i­ng to reach the next val­ley crossed the moun­tains on foot. Today the wood comes by lor­ry, and there is a pow­er tiller for the pota­toes.

In our con­ver­sa­tions about Gross Nation­al Hap­pi­ness, growth is often approached with cau­tion. From Pas­sang Zam, progress sounds dif­fer­ent: tan­gi­ble, wel­come, a relief you can feel in your shoul­ders. She mea­sures it not in num­bers but by whether every­day life has become eas­i­er. This holds an uncom­fort­able ques­tion for organ­i­sa­tions that intro­duce new sys­tems and tools and read their suc­cess from key fig­ures: do peo­ple feel that their every­day work is becom­ing eas­i­er? Change is embraced when it brings relief and strength­ens what makes an organ­i­sa­tion what it is; it is mere­ly endured when it only con­vinces on paper.

Hap­pi­ness Is Close at Hand

Towards the end we ask Pas­sang Zam a ques­tion that is almost tak­en for grant­ed in Bhutan: what is hap­pi­ness for you? Her answer needs no the­o­ry: liv­ing in your own house, being in your own vil­lage, see­ing that your chil­dren are well, and hav­ing a com­mu­ni­ty in which peo­ple are con­nect­ed – with the monastery, the offer­ings and the fes­ti­vals.

Yet her chil­dren no longer live in the vil­lage. Her two sons are in Aus­tralia, and her daugh­ter is build­ing her own busi­ness in Thim­phu. They ask their moth­er to stop and come to live with them, but Pas­sang Zam wants to keep run­ning the home­s­tay for as long as she can, per­haps until 65, and won­ders how far she should depend on oth­ers while she can still con­tribute her­self. For her, work is not a bur­den but an expres­sion of dig­ni­ty and self-deter­mi­na­tion.

Any­one who pic­tures break­fast at the Deki Farm­house will recog­nise the same pat­tern: in the qui­et joy with which our host offers his jars lies the pride of some­one who has cre­at­ed some­thing of his own and can share it. Belong­ing, root­ed­ness and the sense of con­tribut­ing shape sat­is­fac­tion in organ­i­sa­tions just as much as in a vil­lage in the Phob­jikha Val­ley. How much com­mu­ni­ty do we make pos­si­ble? And do we find suit­able forms for peo­ple who want to con­tribute for as long as they can, instead of an abrupt end?

Per­haps this is the qui­et les­son from Gangtey: progress and hap­pi­ness need not be oppo­sites, as long as progress makes life eas­i­er and strength­ens what is one’s own rather than replac­ing it. How do the peo­ple in your organ­i­sa­tion notice that their every­day work is becom­ing eas­i­er – and how much of it is tru­ly their own?