“Happiness Under Construction”: A Project in Opposition to the Problem of Obligatory Happiness

Happiness is the ultimate goal of living well and it is, at the same time, the principle of motivation that guides many people’s daily choices. However, there is currently an urgent need to be happy and, by taking advantage of this fragility, some companies and institutions have devalued the responsible exploration of this issue, and have made it a tradable and consumable asset. All of this has contributed to the evolution of happiness towards becoming a condition of belonging, giving rise to a way of living where this feeling must be mandatory and self-evident. It is in order to respond to this trend, and understanding that it is directly related to the lack of knowledge and deeper understanding of the theme, that the project “Happiness under Construction” emerged. It arose within the scope of an applied investigation, consisting of an interactive narrative in the form of a website, which presents itself as a proposal to act in opposition to the current model of obligatory happiness. The development of this project had two major methodological moments; one about the definition of the target audience, and another about the creation of the website—both of which got the collaboration of real people in order to support the project in a constructive way. Its result revealed that, through the intersection of the disciplines of positive psychology and positive design, the developed project contributed significantly to people’s wellbeing.