Digging this up because.....we are plummeting yet again.
I imagine this won't come as a surprise to most of us.
So, what are the keys to happiness -- with some lessons drawn from places like Finland, which lands in the #1 spot again?
Bolded the important parts, because the contrast is painfully stark.
Understanding that "happiness" isn't necessarily "joy" or exuberance, but more accurately, is characterized as contentment and satisfaction.....these factors all make sense, both in what happier countries have, and what we're missing. These are NOT political issues -- they are cultural and social issues. Now, do those cultural and social issues bleed over and create our political environment? Yep, absolutely.
So, think of life in Finland. It's maybe not as ostentatious or glamorous as the top 1% live here, but it's a good life. They have....enough. They have made a real broad effort for everyone to have.....enough. In the summer, they spend a couple of weeks at a modest cabin on a lake -- often with no or minimal electricity. You share meals, sit around the fire, sauna, take a cold plunge in the lake, drink and laugh. It's a good damned life, built around the simple things and, importantly, centered on family and friends. As much as they have a reputation for being quiet and reserved, they're actually quite social and friendly (just not so loud and boisterous).
We. Community. Common purposes. Sharing. The common good. Valuing kindness and empathy as important qualities. Viewing transactions -- personal, business, etc. -- as integrative in nature (each side tries to reach an agreement beneficial to both parties, a win-win). Those are the things that lead to happiness.
Me. Mine. Me vs. you. Seeing empathy as a fault and a weakness. Viewing transactions -- personal, business, etc. -- as distributive in nature (treat every transaction as one over a fixed pie, so there must be a winner and a loser). These are things that take us further away from happiness.
Culturally, we have made a god of our toxic individualism, our "for me to win, you must lose" ethos. We have elevated those to be sacred, defining elements of the American character. And a natural secondary effect is that when that set of values is elevated to the divine....the contrary set of values (living in community, seeking mutual benefit) ends up being defined as evil.
One of -- perhaps THE -- leading voices of our society (the owner of one of the largest communication platforms, most valuable business enterprises, and co-president of the country) made no bones about that value judgment: “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” His take is not an outlier. He accurately captured the dominant cultural belief in this moment. The problem is, if our goal is to have a reasonably happy society, that take is poison. We are drinking poison. We should stop that.
We won't. At least, I don't see any prospects for doing so until we've fully played out the current string we're on. Keep going further and further to the "me, me, me, and F you" extreme.....and when we realize that it's not making us happy, and instead is making us miserable, eventually our misery reaches such a depth that we say "okay, fine.....maybe let's try something else." But we've got a long, long, long, and painful way to go before we get there. That is pretty f'n depressing.