The Geography of Bliss

I’ve been enjoying Eric Weiner’s book The Geography of Bliss, described on his website as "Signaling the next great category of literary nonfiction: the philosophical self-help humorous travel memoir" (No wonder I couldn't figure out where to look for it at Barnes and Noble!)

Weiner (pronounced like 'whiner') spent years as foreign correspondent, frequently sent to cover the unhappiest events in the most difficult places. Now he decides to explore (and tell) the other side of the story.

Eric visits and writes about 10 countries* and their diverse pursuits of happiness.

The Dutch seem to find their happiness by lingering for long periods of time in cafes, riding their bikes, and being as tolerant as is humanly possible. But Eric was glad to get away. "Tolerance is great, but tolerance can easily slide into indifference, and that's no fun at all." (p. 25)

For the Swiss, happiness is next to cleanliness, functionality (Eric fell in love with the Swiss train system), nature, and really good chocolate.

The people of Bhutan find it in choosing spirituality over materialism, and in Thailand, people have learned just not to take themselves so seriously.

Across the board, the author discovers, family and friends are important. The happiest societies are full of people who consider their relationships more important than their problems.

Money helps, but only to a point; poverty is a big downer but the more money you have the less of a difference it makes.

Excessive thinking can be a problem. People who think a lot - even thinking a lot about happiness - usually fail to grasp it. This took the author by surprise:

"I've always considered myself a thoughtful person. There's virtually nothing I won't think about, from the intensely profound to the astonishingly trivial. The only thing I haven't given much thought to is... thinking.

"Like most westerners, I've never felt the need to question the value of thinking... psychotherapy is built on this assumption - cognitive therapy, in particular. If we can only fix our faulty thought patterns, our corrupted software, then happiness, or at least less misery, will ensue.

"I've spent most of my life trying to think my way to happiness, and my failure to achieve that goal only proves, in my mind, that I am not a good enough thinker. It never occurred to me that the source of my unhappiness is not flawed thinking but thinking itself.

"Until I traveled to Thailand..." (pp. 224-225)

Turns out beaches are optional; some of the world's happiest places are cold, and the climes classed as "paradise" often fall in the middle on the happiness scale.

But gratitude and trust, those are not optional. The happiest people live in places with high levels of both. If you don't trust the people you interact with regularly you probably can't be happy.

"Trusting your neighbors is especially important. Simply knowing them can make a real difference in your quality of life. One study found that, of all the factors that affect the crime rate for a given area, the one that made the biggest difference was not the number of police patrols or anything like that but, rather, how many people you know within a fifteen-minute walk of your house." (p. 39)

This post is getting long. Come back tomorrow for some thoughts from Switzerland, Iceland, and Moldova about the connections between envy and happiness.

* Curious? This book includes chapters on the Netherlands, Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Moldova, Thailand, Great Britain, India, and America. Not necessarily the happiness top ten, but they provide for some very interesting comparisons.