Amid the times of the coronavirus pandemic and the ever expanding presence of disturbing news, there is one thing that can bring us a moment of happiness. Yes, the news does not put our own country at the top of the list but it does surely invite us to think of how Finland has managed to become the ‘happiest country’ in the world and perhaps begin to learn a few lessons from it.
The United Nations has gone ahead and declared that Finland is indeed the world’s most ‘happiest nation’. Finland has received this title for the third consecutive year. Researchers for the World Happiness Report went ahead and questioned people in 153 countries to evaluate their levels of happiness by taking into account factors such as the GDP, social support, personal freedom and levels of corruption in their countries.
Finland came the first and was followed by countries like Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand and Austria. India has occupied the 144th position on the list and is much lower than its neighbours Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
According to the index of happiness, the happiest countries are those where people feel a sense of belonging, where they mistrust and enjoy each other and their shared institutions. Shared trust brings down the burden of hardships and lessens inequality while increasing the levels of wellbeing.
The countries which occupied positions at the end of the list were the ones that had extreme poverty or violence. Zimbabwe, Sudan, Afghanistan were officially classified as the less happier countries.
In Finland people are known to enjoy a high quality of life, social security and public security and there is less social inequality and anxiety about existence itself. The data used in the report was collected during 2018-19 and thus does not take into account the widespread global restrictions imposed on citizens by various countries in light of Covid-19.
