The Happiness Story

 For a number of years....the UN has done something called the 'Happiness' report, and they rank countries.  

So last week....for the 5th year in a row....Finland was declared the happiest country in the world.  

I sat and pondered over this.  A couple of years ago....I spent a week in Helsinki.  It was an odd experience (at least for an American).

So, to get some things out of the way and relate to this happiest state of mind....Finns are people who don't get overly excited or bent out-of-shape over chaos.  In fact, if you asked most Finns about chaos....they would interpret it to mean that the flashlight batteries finally died.....the 16-year-old coffee-machine crapped-out this morning, or their 44-year old daughter called this morning to announce she was finally marrying her boyfriend....having dated him for almost seventeen years.  

Yes, if you had to value stoic tendencies....compared to most people....you'd have to take the scale of one-to-ten, and reset it to one-to-fourteen....to fit Finns into the proper range.

A lot of people don't realize this about Finns, but on average....they tend to consume a quarter-gallon of milk every single day.  That puts them  at number one in the world on milk consumption.

The folks who originated the idea of a internet 'browser'?  Well....they were Finns (1992).

The first satellite call via a cellphone?  Well....the Finns did that in 1994.

Linux code?  Yeah, that was a Finn thing as well.

Finns tend to think about things....in a deep way.  Texting people?  That was openly discussed by Finns in the mid-1980s.  

The harsh winter affecting outcomes?  There's no doubt that marginal hours of sunshine in the winter period probably has some effect on the way people think or behave. 

In my belief....Finns don't have much time to squander on being unhappy.  

If that coffee machine of  sixteen years finally failed this morning....they are more likely to ask why, and tear the machine apart tonight after returning home from work....to resolve the failure and possibly make it better.

If the daughter did have great news of her soon-to-be marriage (after 17 years of dating)....the parents might ask 'why rush things'.  

As for anyone overtaking Finland next year on this happiness scale?  No....forget about that.  They've got the edge for the next hundred years.