Here’s how to know if you’re happy
You feel well-rested. People treat you with respect. You smile a lot and laugh in between smiles. You learned or did something interesting and had feelings of enjoyment yesterday.
Making a list of the 10 happiest countries, Gallup asked 1,000 people in each of 148 countries if these characteristics applied to them. They released their findings last week. Seven of the happiest countries were in Latin America. In Panama and Paraguay — nations with high poverty rates and low public health statistics — 85 percent of those polled said yes to all five questions, putting them at the top of the list. Following close behind were El Salvador, Venezuela, Trinidad, Tobago, Thailand, Guatemala, the Philippines, Ecuador and Costa Rica.
What Gallup demonstrated again was that happiness is a state of mind and can be part of a national culture.
Armenia — which ranked close to the bottom — is an example. A sociologist there said, “Armenians like being mournful,” and, he said, “feel ashamed of being successful.”
The United States came in 33rd on the happiness list, which brings up the question, “How do we get happier?”
Gallup provided the answer: for goodness sake, count your blessings.
Many of the people in those top 10 nations are miserable and don’t know it. Guatemala, to take one of them, has one of the highest murder rates in the world. Thieves there steal everything that’s loose. The poverty rate is high, housing is awful, education is worse and people there die earlier than they should because the health care system is primitive. Similar criticisms can be made of most of the nations of Latin America.
Without bad-mouthing the rest of them, the lesson Americans should take away from Gallup’s massive survey is that each of us is in charge of our happiness quota.
If we have been spared calamities, we can determine to be happy — and succeed. Look at those qualifications in the second paragraph again. All are within reach of most of us.
Start by smiling a lot. Then work up to learning interesting things and doing enjoyable activities. You won’t get a better present than the one you can give yourself.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
