A nice piece in the NYT on happiness in general and Bhutan in particular.  It seems in Bhutan a concerted effort is made to foster not only material development but subjective happiness:

"We have to think of human well-being in broader terms," said Lyonpo
Jigmi Thinley, Bhutan’s home minister and ex-prime minister. "Material
well-being is only one component. That doesn’t ensure that you’re at
peace with your environment and in harmony with each other."

    The social scientists are on to it and they are finding that money does not guarantee happiness.  While richer people tend to be happier people, there are some societies, most notably in Latin America, that are happier than their level of economic development would justify.  Happiness is not driven wholly by personal wealth:

The founding fathers [of the US], said John Ralston Saul, a Canadian political
philosopher, defined happiness as a balance of individual and community
interests. "The Enlightenment theory of happiness was an expression of
public good or the public welfare, of the contentment of the people,"
Mr. Saul said. And, he added, this could not be further from "the
20th-century idea that you should smile because you’re at Disneyland."

     For someone like me, trolling the web and looking for places to intervene with ancient Chinese philosophy, this is easy picking.  And the thing that comes immediately to mind is Taoism, which holds that only by giving up our expectations, and our luxuries, and our desires will we find contentment.  Perhaps the best expression of this is the penultimate passage from the Tao Te Ching, which may well describe what Bhutan is looking for (from the Hendricks translation):

Let the country be small and people few—
Bring it about that there are weapons for "tens" and "hundreds,"
yet let no one use them;
Have the people regard death gravely and put migrating far from
their minds.
Though they might have boats and carriages, no one will ride them;
Though they might have armor and spears, no one will display them.
Have the people return to knotting cords and using them.

They will relish their food,
Regard their clothing as beautiful,
Delight in their customs,
And feel safe and secure in their homes.
Neighboring states might overlook one another,
And the sounds of chickens and dogs might be overheard,
Yet the people will arrive at old age and death with no comings
and goings between them.