Happiness
“Whoever is happy will make others happy.”
- Anne Frank
The 2025 World Happiness Report is out, in case you missed it – which wouldn’t be surprising, given all the unhappiness, anger, and meanness filling the headlines and social media posts – and nowhere more so than in our own country, where the current spirit of vindictiveness would seem so petty if the stakes weren’t so high. The very idea of happiness seems a luxury reserved for the comfortable, even a frivolity in a society where success is measured in terms of power and wealth, and the corresponding ability to humiliate those beneath you. The way to happiness is to get rich and amass power. And pay no attention to the warnings – from the ancient Greeks to Shakespeare to David Brooks – that such hubris leads to calamity.
In this year’s rankings, Finland once again finished first, with Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden close behind, and Norway, the remaining Scandinavian country, in 7th place. While Europe is overrepresented in the top 20, with 14 countries, Costa Rica (6), Israel (8) and Mexico (10) all cracked the top ten.
By contrast, the United States dropped again to #24, continuing its steady slide that began in 2016. It is the country’s lowest ranking ever. The report cited declining social trust and growing inequality as the key contributors.
At the bottom of the list is Afghanistan. Beset by violence, poverty, and the subjugation of half its population (women), that nation is not only last of the 147 reporting countries (a few were deemed too dangerous to canvas) but is on a steep downward spiral with faint hope of recovery.
This year’s report focused on the impact on human happiness of “caring and sharing.” It turns out that most of us are more pessimistic about the kindness and generosity of others than is the case. That is, we expect people to be meaner and more selfish than they actually are. But it turns out that trust in others is a better indicator of our own happiness than either our income or our employment.
This has far-reaching implications, not only for our personal lives, but for the nation, and even the world. “The happiest countries are also among the most generous,” the report notes. “A positive correlation exists between international aid and happiness, suggesting that countries spreading happiness beyond their borders are not only happier but also more benevolent.” Foreign aid, it turns out, does as much for the giver as the recipient. These subjective experiences, in turn, shape a society’s values and voting behavior more than ideological or political beliefs.
All of which suggests, at least to me, that we are moving catastrophically in the wrong direction. Admittedly, it didn’t take a report from Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Centre to make me realize that, but it did remind me that virtues like kindness, generosity, and happiness are more than minor considerations on the political stage. They are the glue that holds a society together, and in this country “the decline in happiness and social trust explains a large share in the rise of political polarization.”
One reason for this, I think, is that happiness, unlike power and domination, is not a zero-sum game. You cannot increase your happiness by taking away the happiness of someone else. In fact, you can only increase your happiness by contributing to the well-being of others. That is why communal happiness is essential to democracies and why autocrats hate it.
Start small: Greet your neighbor with a morning smile. Say “hi” to the stranger on the sidewalk. Volunteer for something. Join a local board or committee. When you go out, carry a few bucks of “give-away” money in your pocket. Laugh from deep in your belly. Let’s start a movement. Pass it on.
The simple methodology of the report: “Our global happiness ranking is based on a single question from the Gallup World Poll, derived from the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale (Cantril Ladder):
“Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time.”
