There is a World Happiness Fest, and it's going to be held in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico, next year from March 15-17. The event is in tune with the World Happiness Day declared by the United Nations for the same month.

Luis Gallardo is the promoter of the festival. He created the event and he is also the founder of the organization called "be." Gallardo is a man who two decades ago quit his corporate job to devote to this thing called happiness.

This thing called happiness — what is it? How does one put together and celebrate a festival themed with such an abstract and intimate concept? 

For starters, the festival's website says something about it, also in an abstract way: "When we realize that happiness is the ultimate goal of human development, as pure magic, what we do in life starts making sense. At Happiness Fest our higher purpose is to realize a world with more happiness and less misery, because when we are happy it is possible to be in peace, to achieve sustainable growth, that as human beings we are the best we can be."

There are further clues about what this event will be: "Positive psychology and education - the future of learning is here," "Mindfulness - the keys to manage our thoughts," "Nutrition and happiness, the ingredients of evolution," "Find your gift and give your gift-vitality in leadership education." It is a two-day festival with a prosperity retreat included.  

In Mexico City, Gallardo made more concrete remarks, as reported by EFE. He said that the goal is to reach "strategic communities who are already aware of the fact that capitalism needs a soul." He made this statement during the presentation of "Virtual Agoras," which, according to EFE, are a series of itinerant workshops and conferences that with the purpose to find that soul.

"There are more than two million organizations worldwide doing all kinds of social service: assistance to refugees, sustainable development, social and psychological work. We must create a unified movement to change the status quo," Gallardo said to EFE.

A World Virtual Agora, the first one, will also we held in March 2019, the day following the festival on March 18, and it will last four days. It will be a forum with "well-being experts, thought leaders, activist, shapers, and game-changers," according to its website. Not many more details have been disclosed.

How can one talk about enduring happiness if one doesn't experience it? In the photo taken of Gallardo for EFE, there is perhaps a little answer. He is sitting with a meditation posture, with mudras in his hands. Of course, meditating is not by itself the only way to touch that thing called happiness. But, certainly, it is only possible to reach endurance in that state if it comes from a source of our own.

La República's Pilar Ibáñez asked Gallardo about a definition of happiness, and so he answered: "To me, happiness is a state of being. It is that point in which we flow, because what we do aligns with our strengths and our gifts. Is in that state that things happen for us, because we vibrate in inner and outer balance."

Maybe this definition seems too unreachable. This explanation may need some landing. How can be happiness be shared?

"We have developed tools and techniques to create environments in schools, workplaces and political structures to make us happier," he said, adding that "happiness and wellbeing affect everybody and diplomacy does not work without a paradigm shift," Gallardo elaborated to EFE.

Let's see if we hear about some results after March 2019.