My Dear Hard Drive

Um, that’s a surprise and a half. According to the new study on happiness around the world, Finland now ranks second after Denmark. I find it very hard to believe, coming from the country which has one of the highest suicide rates in the world and the country where joy comes in a liquid form sold from a government owned facility; Alko. However, we do have a saying which might explain this statistic a little bit: “The one laughing longest is the one on the best meds.” Depression is a nation wide problem, and is largely treated by popping pills, which do make people happier.

There is something else though that I think contributes to the findings more than that: Finns are quite bored with their image as the depressed nation. We’re not quite as bad as we sometimes let on, but we’re seriously not the happiest people on the planet. We may be the most contented people on the planet, but certainly not the happiest. I think that the wish to change our reputation a bit, a lot of respondents have felt compelled to exaggerate the good stuff – which of course wouldn’t be a bad thing to do on a more regular basis.

There are other factors as well, considering Finnish happiness, which probably should be brought up. We are easily satisfied. We don’t expect much of life. The feeling of happiness comes largely from the fact that you get what you think you deserve or what you have earned. I think that in USA for example, people expect a lot more from life than what Finns do, and therefore feel unhappier than the Finns do, even though they might have more or less the exact same standard of life. I know from my own life, that I am ten times happier in Tasmania than what I ever was in Finland. My worst day in Tassie is about as bad as the average day in Finland. And Australia didn’t even make the top 10! And the happiness here has nothing to do with how much money I make here, what I do for living or how big my house is, it is a direct result of what happens when I look outside the window. Instead of rain and asphalt I see green on top of green and beauty on top of beauty. If I had been born here though, I would probably think that by now I should have a house with a sea view instead of a house next to a high way on a semi-industrial area, and that might make me feel quite dissatisfied. In Finland I would not even expect to rent a house, let alone having a view besides the wall of the neighboring building seen through the window of my 60 square meter apartment that I pay an arm and a leg for. In comparison, for the amount of money we paid rent for a 2 room flat in Helsinki, we could rent a 2 family home on a massive lot in Hobart-area… But that’s just it. In Finland you wouldn’t expect to get anything more than 2 rooms. (That’s one bed room by the way.)

Finns are good at accepting things as they are. It is a great asset and a great hinderance at the same time. While we don’t suffer for not being able to do or have something, we accept it as it is instead of trying to change it. And that is what makes us so damned happy.