Happiness Index of Countries

Introduction

0:00Hi there, this is Jim. And Ralph. And there's no music in the background, Ralph. No, that's because we are not in the studio today. We're in a special place. We are. We are in. The laptop is sitting on a table over my hospital bed, and I'm sitting up in a chair. And Jim is sitting in a chair. And we're all good. In fact, I'm so good that they're going to let me go home tomorrow.

0:33I don't know if it's because you're good, Ralph. I think they might just be tired of you. That could be. If you're bad enough, they're going to let you go. I'm healing faster than they expected. Ah, okay. Yeah, you have been a healer in the day, right? I have, yes. Yeah. Well, welcome back. And maybe in the next couple of weeks, we can be back on video with Ralph and I. And we're talking right now about doing a video from Ralph's house.

1:04So it's a, what's that called, a remote. So we'll see if Alex can dial it up for us.

Happiness Index

1:10Now, about a year ago, it doesn't seem to be a year, but it was about a year ago, we talked about the International Humor Index. Okay. And we took a look at the happiest people in the world. And we're not here in the United States, by the way. But the Happiness Index has been re-released with new data today. Okay.

1:40So we're going to talk about that. Well, you know, the Happiness Index is interesting because the people who put this data together go to every country in the world. All 147 of them. Yeah, 147 countries. And they say, where are you in terms of happiness? Do you have enough substance? Do you have a government you trust? Do you enjoy your community? Blah, blah. And they put all this stuff together. And then they say, okay, on a scale of one to 10, this country is so much. And this country is only a two. And believe it or not, there are countries that score below a two.

2:30Yeah. And unfortunately, those countries tend to be countries that have dictatorships and a very crazed dictator in charge in the country. Low economic potential also. Yeah. Yeah. People under scrutiny and they're, you know, being looked at all the time. But, Ralph, were you surprised at all that Finland came in as number one?

3:02Well, I wasn't surprised because Finland has come in at number one, you know, what, three or four years in a row? Yeah. And the reason for that, I mean, one of the reasons is that Finland has a country that is very closely knit by cooperative feelings. The Finns are quite willing to work together. Mm-hmm. So that's part of the thing that was measured in this happiness index, right?

3:34Yeah. The cooperation of… The cooperation with your friends and neighbors and so on. And there are two examples that come to mind. One of them is the example of the traveling or progressive dinner where you go to somebody's house and have drinks and appetizers. You go to somebody else's house and have the main meal. You go to somebody else's house and have dessert. And all of the time. And all of the time, the people are cooperating and making things, doing things, serving things.

4:08Sounds fun. I haven't been to a progressive dinner in years. Do they still have them here in America? They do, but not so much. It's a thing that I think a lot of people just have not… They don't have the non-electronic connection to say, let's have a traveling dinner. Okay. I was going to say they might not have the time, but…

4:39Or maybe they don't even have the notion that something like that existed. I don't know. We should do it sometime. We should, yes. A few weeks ago, we talked about play. And one of the things that you said is, for some people, play might be to put on a dinner party. You know, get together and cook together. So, yeah, this is sort of an extension of that. And Ralph and I will get together and cook for our wives as soon as Ralph can get ambulatory.

5:10And he's pretty good right now. He's walking around. So, as soon as the snow leaves Mount Pleasant, today is the snow. Which might be in the first of August, maybe. Tomorrow is the first day of spring. I can't believe it. Anyhow, let's get back to happiness. So, number one was Finland. Now, number two kind of surprised me, but Paul Lennon, my neighbor at Sloan Hall at Central Michigan University, has been over to this country several times.

5:44And he says it's a wonderful country. That's Iceland. Okay. Yeah. They come in at number two. And the United States comes in at… Ta-da! Twenty-three. Yeah. In Canada, twenty-seven, I think. Former homeland comes in at twenty-five. Twenty-five. Mm-hmm. And the people, what's the name of the guy who devised the happiness index, Ralph?

6:16Uh, Hallowell? Yeah, Hallowell. Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of British Columbia. Okay.

6:27So, he's looking at all these variables on one hundred and forty-seven countries, and Canada, his country, comes in at, you know, what was it, twenty-seven? Twenty-five.

Wealth and Happiness

6:40Twenty-five. Okay. Now, one of the things he looked at was the wealthiest countries, and the United States is up there in terms of wealth. Um, Ireland is up there in terms of wealth. You know, a lot of English-speaking countries are up there, in terms of wealth, and they don't do as well as the, some of the non-English-speaking countries. Okay. And… Why might that be? Well, I think one of the things is that, and this is an interesting economic thing, John.

7:18Uh, you and I, at our advanced stage and decrepitude, are really… Speak for yourself, Sloan Ranger. …the last generation that grew up feeling that we would be economically better off than our parents. Uh-huh. And from the generation after ours, I think most people have had a falling feeling that there's no way on God's green earth that they're going to do better than their parents did.

7:52Oh, that's a sinking feeling, but I think it's been reported several times, and the old bugaboo of social media gets part of the blame, doesn't it? It does, and one of the things is that a lot of people look at social media, and whether they consciously do it or not, they look at some influencers posting, and they say, uh, this person or these persons are doing way better than I am.

8:25They look at their posts from Cancun, and everybody's smiling and happy and so on, and they say to themselves, I'm never going to get to go to Cancun. I don't have the economic wherewithal. Now, they might not be directly comparing in their brain, but at the same time, they are indirectly, and they end up saying, you know, obviously I'm less successful than these people.

8:55Well, the thing that they, there are two things, one, they are probably just as successful, but they don't have a YouTube channel that will allow them to make a little money and be able to do this. And the other thing is, they don't take into account the fact that the people who are so happy in Cancun are lying a lot. You know, everybody puts together that money shot, and then they, okay, smile and say cheese and look happy, and then five minutes later, the kids are squabbling and the, you know, guy is out on the porch smoking a cigar and saying, I hate you, and, you know, it's all, it's all a facade.

9:45It's all show business, yeah, you're right. That social comparison thing, we'll eat your lunch, no question about that. But we tend to do it. I don't know why we do it so often. We should do a show on, and get somebody in, on just why we do suck into social comparisons. Because, you know, it's true, we, you know, we do. We're always looking at ourselves in light of somebody else. Yeah, well, I'm not as pretty as Kim Kardashian. Obviously, I am not. I don't have as much money as Taylor Swift, Elon Musk.

10:24Yeah. Well, I mean, if I'm comparing myself against the two richest people on the face of the earth, I doubt if I'll ever get to be able to have a favorable comparison. But if I look at them and say, you know, I think I'm happier than Elon Musk, or as happy as Taylor Swift, you know, that would be another valid comparison. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things, for example, Jim, is, you know, you look at, your family has a car which is not brand new, and maybe is going to come up for a little maintenance, and I have a car which is not brand new, and maybe is going to come up for a little maintenance.

11:17And you say, oh, there are people driving around in 20, 25X cars, and oh, they all look so good. And you know what? Our vehicles still get us from A to B when we need them to. And you could say, oh, I would really like a 20, 25X, Y, Z, but you know what? It doesn't do anything any different than going from X to Y.

11:49Okay. Yeah. Your stoicism is coming through here, Ralph. Very good. Which is probably what has made you be such a good patient here in the hospital, that they're releasing you tomorrow after breaking a hip, what, two weeks before? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't complain a lot about what happened, and you just do what they tell you to do. Do the exercises. Yeah. And the other thing, Jim, is, and I really believe this, is 90% of pain is in your mind.

12:28Mm-hmm. So if you can say, not some hokey thing like pain is weakness, leaving the body, but, you know, yeah, it hurts, but it's okay. Mm-hmm. You know, you don't override it. You just say, it is what it is, and you go on with life. Do the exercises. Mm-hmm. Well, that's a very good attitude to have, Ralph. I've had a cold now for two weeks, and I, my shield will tell you, I'm miserable and making other people miserable as well.

13:04So, you know, your stoicism, your idea of, hey, just, you know, that's what it is. Get over it, right, or get with it.

Happiness Rankings

13:13But let's go back to happiness now. We have the fourth country. Let's see. So, I said, number one was Finland. Number two was Iceland. Number three was Denmark. Four was Norway. Five was Sweden. So all these Scandinavian countries, you know, up in the cold north are the happiest people. So, with the storm that was, you know, supposed to come here and did come through most of the United States,

13:44people were talking about how dreadful it was going to be. Well, apparently there are some people who can find some contentment and happiness in icy, cold conditions, like you and I used to do, Ralph, when we'd go out and ski and snowshoe and, you know, be in the bush in the wintertime. So, nowadays, hello, boys. Hi. Oh, here's Karen, Ralph's wife. She just walked in. We're talking about happiness, Karen. Come on in. Say hello. Hello. Yeah.

14:19So, you know, instead of dreading winter, these people, I guess, embraced it, right? They did. And the other thing, Jim, is, and we talked about this, you and your wife, Sheila, were looking at the weather channel almost, we had it on almost continuously for two days, and you listened to the reports on the weather coming and coming and coming, and somehow what reached Mount Pleasant was sort of, eh, nothing burger, really.

14:54You know, an inch of snow, and it went away in a day or so, and then there was high winds, and they went away in a day or so, and then, you know, guess what? It's coming up to be spring tomorrow, and we may have better weather. But the thing is that that weather channel, while I would not succumb to their saying,

15:27oh, it's going to be dreadful, they certainly had a way of making you feel it's going to be dreadful. Mm-hmm. And the thing is... So just before the storm, Sheila and I were quite anxious about the whole thing. Yeah. So that's the thing about social media. If you increase your anxiety dramatically, even something like the weather channel, which should, you know, just be, hey, I'm reporting on... Facts. So, yeah, what was the name of the guy who came up with the humor and happiness index again?

16:03Howell. Okay. Yeah, now, he does actually point to social media as being something that decays happiness, erodes happiness. So people are so much into social comparisons, like we were talking about a few minutes ago, that they, you know, what would be the word? Words fail me. They just are unhappy. Yeah. And the other thing that he points out, and this is interesting because it goes along with

16:36some of the previous podcasts we've done, he says that social media is harmful to young people, particularly girls. Yeah, because part of the comparison has to do with how they look, which is extremely important to young girls. And, again, you know, if you're comparing yourself to some, what, influencer who is fantastically

17:07beautiful, you might not meet that high standard, right? Right. And so you say to yourself, I'm never going to be like that. And I'll throw out a stat that I've used before on a podcast, but the average runway model in New York City is six foot tall and weighs about 110 to 112 pounds.

17:37That's not a healthy statistic, is it? No. And she's under 20. Uh-huh. The average North American woman is five foot six and weighs 136 pounds and is 36 years old. So you say to yourself, okay, for the average woman trying to say, I want to be a fashion model when she's 13, given that she's never going to be six feet tall, you have to say to

18:14yourself... How does she get to be 110 pounds? Yeah. Hey, self-starvation, Ralph. Yeah. Okay. And then you say, wait a minute, why is this woman, you know, anorexic and so on and so forth? So, you know... Because I want to be like her, right? Yeah. Okay.

Pursuing Happiness

18:37Well, I think we're still on here, Ralph, but the video just went away. Let me see if I can find it again. You can keep talking. Okay. One of the things, Jim, that was interesting to me is that country number eight in terms of happiness was Israel.

18:58Now, I had a good friend who went to Israel at one point, and one of the things she said was she was just kind of overwhelmed by getting on buses and other public transport. In Israel and finding every second person on the bus had a machine gun. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Not just the guards? Not just the guards. I mean, the thing is that ex-national guards in Israel are issued their service weapon for

19:35life, and they're expected to take it if there is a high chance of an attack. So they take it with them. Okay. Now, when you look at the crime rate in Israel, it's vanishingly small. I wouldn't do a crime if I knew the guy next to me had a submachine gun. Well, that may be part of it, or it may be just that, you know, they have that sense of cooperation

20:09that ranks Finland so high. Better morality. Yeah. So the thing that I'm looking at, Jim, is to say my goal, knowing that the USA has gone down one place, I think it is, from last year, from 22nd to 23rd, my goal is to say what can we do to bring the U.S. up again to where we feel good about ourselves, we feel positive

20:48about the country, and we feel positive about the world that we're in. Well, I know that when we get back onto YouTube, and we're videoing our podcasts, we are going to have a Patch Adams Day, right? We are, yes. Okay. So, maybe we can get Alex to cooperate. Could be. Karen walked in, and she is here, very quiet. Karen, what do you think about happiness? I think happiness is a mindset.

21:18I think you have to decide, I want to be happy, and you have to actively pursue that. And you have to protect your happiness, you have to say, this stuff on public media is making me anxious, I'm not going to watch it, I'm not going to listen to it, I'm going to stay free of that artificial anxiety. I think you have to work hard to spread happiness. I think it's important to smile and say hello to people you meet.

21:50Treat the clerk in the grocery store like a human being. I think every time you give happiness, you make yourself happy. That's, I think, true. We've talked about that one in the past. You know, Ralph, what I'm going to do is put, under our show notes, I'll put it in the Peanuts song, Happiness Is. Okay. And for the shameful plug, here it comes, shameless plug, if you want to help yourself

22:20with your anxiety and become more happy, the book, Overcoming Anxiety, is available at Amazon, and we'll put a link up for that as well. Okay, that sounds good, Jim. And I guess, before we sign off, we should remind our readers that part of being, or listeners, is part of being happy is keeping your stick on the ice. Because we're all at this together.