All this talk about happiness in recent weeks may have obscured something really obvious: being unhappy is good for our society.
Unhappiness keeps the High Street busy. Consumer marketing hinges on showing how you can be one of the happy people if only you would buy more, eat more, or drink more. Airbrushing already attractive people makes it easier to create such myths.
All you have to do is put your hand in your wallet.
And then do it all over again when you realise - as you inevitably will - that the feeling of inadequacy, of exclusion or loss hasn't gone away. And because it never will, the tills keep on ringing.
We spend, therefore we are. Kerching.
Equally, fear of being left behind in the salaries race motivates us to work harder. It's not enough to earn more - you've got to earn more than the people you measure yourself against. This could well keep you in the doldrums forever.
Research, quoted by Professor Richard Leyard, (Happiness: lessons from a new science) suggests that we are only really happy with our financial lot provided those against whom we benchmark our earnings are not getting more than us.
If two people who know each other and who both earn £100,000 are given a pay rise - one of 10% and one of 15% - the person on the now lower salary is less happy even though he's earning 10% more.
Productivity rules.
Of course, not all unhappiness is socially constructive. Schadenfreude - the delight in the misfortunes of others - is one source of mirth for some. Knowing that others are doing less well than you will create smiles where scorns might have been. But this is not likely to add to the sum total of human existence.
Whether we are happy or not may not be our gift anyway. Simply having happy friends might do the trick. Christakis and Fowler (Connected: the amazing power of social networks and how they shape our lives) say this:
"Mathematical analyses...suggest that a person is about 15 per cent more likely to be happy if a directly connected person (at one degree of separation) is happy. And the spread of happiness doesn't stop there. The happiness effect for people at two degrees of separation (the friend of a friend) is 10 per cent, and for people at three degrees of separation (the friend of a friend of a friend), is about 6 per cent."
So if you're miserable, attach yourself to some happy people. (Bear in mind that they may not want someone dragging them down.)
In reality, happiness is a fleeting thing. You might momentarily experience it on the beach this summer, savouring the sunlight, until you recall in a moment's distraction that you were over-charged at the bar or that an email you had expected still hadn't arrived.
In truth, we need to be thankful for our unhappiness. Seeing others whose lot is not to be envied does make us sad. And that converts into actions that make others' lives better. We volunteer. We give money. We lend our support to people we have never met. We demand change. And whilst we do derive personal benefits from helping others, dissatisfaction is at the core of it all.
So look around you. There's plenty to cause your smile to wane: child poverty, underachievement, global warming, the Euro crisis, the US debt crisis and much, much more.
Things are not good here on Planet Earth.
Nothing is more likely to compel us more to act than being unhappy what we see, hear and feel.
So as long as things are as bad as they are, then there are reasons to be cheerful. At least we'll get on and do something about it.
That alone is enough to make you smile.