A MONTH ago, I hosted an American woman who had come to the Philippines for an unusual reason. She is the president of a mental health institution in the United States and had decided to spend a monthlong sabbatical here. It was not a vacation in the traditional sense. She came with a sense of curiosity — almost a quiet investigation.
Her goal was simple: to understand Filipino culture.
Over long conversations, shared meals and walks around the city, she told me what had drawn her here in the first place. It was a report released in 2025 by the Global Flourishing Study, a major international collaboration among researchers at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion and the global analytics firm Gallup.
The study wanted to answer one of humanity’s oldest questions: What does it mean to have a life well-lived?
Rather than measuring success purely through wealth or economic growth, the researchers focused on something deeper — the idea of human flourishing. In their framework, flourishing is defined as the relative attainment of a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good, including the environment and communities in which they live.
It is a holistic view of well-being.
The researchers measured flourishing across six domains: happiness and life satisfaction; mental and physical health; meaning and purpose; character and virtue; close social relationships; and financial and material stability.
The scope of the project was extraordinary. The first wave of the study surveyed more than 207,000 participants across 22 countries and Hong Kong, covering populations that represent roughly 64 percent of the world.
When the results were released, one detail stood out to my visiting guest. Among all the countries studied, the highest levels of flourishing were found in Indonesia, Mexico and the Philippines (https://globalflourishingstudy.com).
Meanwhile, some of the world’s most developed economies — including Japan, Türkey and the United Kingdom — ranked significantly lower.
“How does a country facing many economic challenges still rank among the most flourishing societies in the world?” my guest asked me.
The question lingered long after she returned to the US.
In many ways, I have seen hints of the answer in my own life. When I moved back to the Philippines, I quickly found something I had not realized I was missing: community.
Within a short time, I had formed friendships that went far beyond casual social circles. These were not simply people to meet for dinner or occasional gatherings. They became part of my life in a deeper way.
I met their families. I attended birthdays, weddings and small gatherings that marked the rhythms of everyday life. Even during difficult moments, they seemed to have time — not out of obligation, but out of genuine care. There was a shared understanding that life is something we move through together.
A few months ago, our extended family gathered to celebrate my cousin’s 18th birthday. She lives in London, yet the celebration was held at our grandparents’ small provincial home a few hours from Manila.
Several members of our family live in the US, Canada and England. Yet when it was time to celebrate an important milestone, everyone felt that the Philippines was the right place to do it. Here, the celebration was not just about the occasion itself, but about being surrounded by generations of family, laughter and memories.
I have noticed something similar with foreign visitors. Not long ago, I hosted a global investor based in Washington, D.C., who spends much of his life traveling between major financial capitals. He even travels in his own private plane, which makes global movement effortless.
Yet, when he needed a place for rest and recovery, he chose the Philippines for two weeks of quiet. He told me he was looking for something simple — peace, warmth and a sense of human connection.
Perhaps that is where the answer lies. Filipino culture carries a deeply rooted concept known as “kapwa” — the recognition that we share a common identity with others. It is the belief that we are not separate from one another but fundamentally connected.
You see it everywhere in daily life — how neighbors care for each other, in the openness with which families welcome guests, and in the instinctive generosity that often appears even in communities with very little material wealth.
In a world that increasingly measures success through wealth, productivity and status, the Philippines offers a different perspective on what a life well lived might look like. Sometimes, flourishing is not about having the most, but simply about having each other.
