Denmark By Dan Buettner Summary

Happiness is a state of existence that Americans have perused since the founding of this great country. It’s such an important part of American life that “The pursuit of Happiness” is even “laid out in our nation’s Declaration of Independence” (McMahon 783). Happiness is something that may come from many aspects of life: one’s children, employment, financial wellbeing, sports, hobbies, and many other things. Ruth Whippman tells us that "Americans as a whole invest more time and money and emotional energy in the explicit pursuit of happiness than any other nation on earth". Are Americans happier today than they were three centuries ago? Does modern technology, social economic status, religious freedoms, and/or the

Senior compares what people think about people in other states and locations happiness, finding that usually these comparisons are untrue. Different studies and polls found that the Swiss and Canadians rank themselves among the happiest, while the Japanese are less happy. European countries tend to rank themselves the least happy, with Russia coming in last. Is happiness really based on location? I find that just because people don’t like the snowy weather doesn’t mean that they are unhappy during the holiday season. Families seem to come together and rejoice in each other’s company during this bad weather season. “And no matter where they live, human beings are terrible predictors of what will make them happy” (426). Senior discusses how we fill in the gaps, where we tend to remember only happy events and feelings and phase out bad ones. She discuss how our imaginations work in rationalizing situations and feelings, setting ourselves up for big disappointments, but deal with the successfully at the

In Happy by Roko Belic (a 2011 documentary), “All I want is to be happy in life” was a reoccurring statement from the people in the film. A majority of people in today’s world agree with that statement. Everyone wants to be happy, but what truly defines happiness? The Happy documentary presents different things that make certain people happy, and what influences their feelings. The film does not only imply that direct message, but also paints a bigger picture for the audience. The bigger picture being: how ecology is the main factor behind people’s happiness. The director of this film combines real experiences from people around the world along with research from scientists to explain our simple emotion, happiness.

However, there is only one moral aspect to blame in this context: the circumstance. “If you ask an unhappy person why he is unhappy, he’ll blame the circumstance. In many cases, this is justified” (Brooks, 2014). This is exactly what makes blaming an individual for their happiness unethical. It is much too high of an expectancy to place on someone, especially if their circumstances are less fortunate than others in the world. In The Happy Danes, Meik Wiking links a country’s status and value to the happiness of the citizens within it. “A strong civil society and democracy; high degrees of security, trust, freedom, and prosperity, together with good working conditions with space for a life in balance, contribute to the creation of a happy society” (Wiking, 57). It is said within this article that Denmark is the happiest country in the world. This is because they have not only guarded what makes their country valuable, but they began to acknowledge a citizen’s happiness and how that can contribute to their economy. Despite having their own troubles as any country does, they are still the happiest country in the world due to how closely they guarded their valuables. “Denmark has got its own challenges - but remains an example of a country that has succeeded in securing its population high levels of trust, security, wealth, balance, freedom - and happiness”

Over the course of the last several decades, the polarization of American society’s use of positive and negative social etiquette in all interactions has reached its greatest level in recorded history. Never before have we been more aware of the greater events taking place in the world, yet ignorant and uncaring of the smaller more personal intricacies of our daily lives. At least, this is what freelance writer Todd Schwartz would lead us to believe in his thought provoking paper “American Jerk”. The majority of statements Schwartz’ makes in this article are accurate for the majority of American society, yet he draws several flawed parallels and fails to provide the necessary information to prove his greater accusations. This results in

The United States is commonly known as “No-Vacation Nation” (Thompson, 2012) because Americans typically prioritize work over studies and family. (1)Although people in America take fewer vacations than any nation in the world, socioeconomics may be a reason for why employees focus more on work than research and relationships in the American culture. "There is simply no evidence that working people to death gives you a competitive advantage" (Pawlowski, 2011). (2)As a citizen of the United States and one who has often fallen prey to these ideals, the trend to overwork has been an affliction to overcome. Family and scholarly efforts have been sacrificed, but over the past year or two, I have made a conscious effort to alter my “live to work”

I'm Vietnamese American. I came to America twelve years ago. I’d say I am equally influenced by both Vietnamese and American culture. Growing up as a Catholic, I learned that happiness is the life that we receive when we are in union with God in heaven. How do we get there is something I had to learn from both textbooks and experiences. My parents would often talk about growing up, getting a job, starting a family, and live happily. They also talk about how religion leads you to happiness when you values love and kindness. Religion specifically taught me values such as persistence, perseverance, humility, forgiveness, and charity. These values is reflected in the way I speak, think, and view life.

Where are the happiest places on Earth? You might think a sunny beach in the Caribbean or the warm southern coasts of France, but the most outstanding in a new Forbes list of the happiest places on Earth are Denmark, Sweden, and Norway ("The World's 10 Happiest"). What do these countries have in common? Importantly, they are all social democracies based on the Nordic model of government policy, which is based upon a mixed-market system that encourages both economic opportunity and equality. However, we live in a country where only the most powerful can have their voices heard (Gilens and Page). Social democracies are better than the current government in the United States because a Nordic model can promote democratic ideals better than our

Laughter fills the streets. Everyone is hugging each other and telling them they love them. There is one person sitting on a park bench alone, watching others. They seemed to have just been crying. Strangers walk past and say “Hello, good morning!” and they smile. But then the smiles fades. In today’s society, people strive to be happy, however not many of them realize there is more than one way to achieve happiness.

Fred Astaire sums this surrender of compassion into one amazing quote: “The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.” Even though Astaire’s statement contradicts the beliefs of many people across the nation, it shows insight into the true problem. Positive social interactions are no longer a normalized aspect of human life. While the vanishing of respect for one another has hit the mainstream more recently; the issue has been around for multiple centuries. “This pattern and its consequences had already drawn the attention of European and American observers by the early 19th century”” (Fass 85). Yet, we have not tried to fix the issue, but only allowed the bad behavior

As Americans, we are generally recognized as a “positive and optimistic” group of people. This is our reputation as well as our self-image as a nation. The entire idea of positivity has overruled us and has been set almost as a basic, unquestioned standard in our nation. Through Barbara Ehrenreich’s novel, Bright-Sided, one can essentially generalize ideas about American culture, American society and the American experience in relation to this topic. To begin with, this novel describes to readers that the typical American cultural stereotype includes ideas that we “value the positive affect that seems to signal internal happiness” (Ehrenriech, 13).

The point often overlooked is the fact that the idea of happiness seems perfect, specially the happiness of the entire city, which sounded suspecting to me. However, the author insists that people of that city lead complex lives. In

Take a moment and think about what makes you happy on a typical day? More often than not, one would base their happiness on their ability to finish tasks and being able to check “things” off that have been accomplished. Infrequently, people rarely take the time to reflect on the simple pleasures in life. As expressed in David Henry Thoreau’s essay, “Where I lived and What I lived For”, humans need to simply their lives. We, as a society, have begun to become “frittered away by details” (Thoreau, 1100) and material things. Thoreau’s argument is convincing as it stresses the significance and importance of living a simple life that nature can give. As such, people should follow this perspective of life in the sense that one should try to do the unconventional and live simply. By living simply, one will be able to find happiness from within. Although a simple life is ideal, there are others who feel simplicity is, and can be equated to ignorance. As the historian Thomas Gray once noted, “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise” (Ode on a Distant Prospect, 1783). In simpler terms, the less one knows about the world around them, the better off they are.

The world seems to be a dark and unforgiving place, but happiness is hidden within. It is found in a beautiful view, an uplifting song, or a compliment from a friend. According to the Ted Talk video, The Habits of Happiness, Matthieu Ricard claims that everyone “has a deep, profound desire for well-being or happiness”(Ricard 2:39). Ricard uses the three techniques of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to captivate and move his audience. With the use of metaphors, personal experiences, and even graphs Matthieu explained to his audience the full force and perception of the bendable word that is happiness. This Ted Talk dove into philosophical meaning on just how to achieve well-being, without having everything in the world.

The state of wellbeing as it is experienced by the individual is thought to be a defining component of the human experience and inherent to the very notion of what it means to be a person. However, the concept of wellbeing and the definitions of happiness and wellbeing are not constant across the spectrum of human cultures; individuals’ experiences of emotions and happiness are as as varied and diverse as the cultures which they exist in. A person’s experience of happiness is defined by the culture’s language and driven by expectations that are both artificially created and rooted in cultural tradition. In his essay “The Mega Marketing of depression in Japan”, Ethan Watters explores the relationship between cultural expectations and the experience of happiness via the marketing campaign undertaken by pharmaceutical behemoths which succeeded in radically altering the Japanese definition of depression to agree with the Western model. Through Watter’s study, a better understanding of how language and values can rewrite the cultural narrative of wellbeing can be obtained.