MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
You have two days left to greet us a Happy Women’s Month and let us choose, be a happy woman or have a happy month?
Happiness is a moment, a condition or an attitude; like love, hard to define. But if a country (or nation) may be considered a family, as in the UN “family of nations,” we could easily apply Tolstoy’s observation that while all happy families are alike, unhappy families are different in their own way.
PH ranked no. 60 in a list of 164 countries that were measured for their citizens’ happiness index. Not bad, considering the odds we face every day as an archipelago in the Pacific rim of fire and how we’re battered by typhoons 20 times a year and earthquakes that shake us now and then. On top of which we’re subjected to economic pressures and political adventures/misadventures, all of which we take in stride as part of our democratic rights and duties. So why aren’t we in the higher rungs of happiness?
A long time ago Bobby Kennedy opined that a country’s GDP/GNP scores are not an accurate measurement of the happiness of its people. Sometime later, the tiny kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas made news as the happiest place on earth (not Disneyland). This year’s list, based on a UN study, placed seven Nordic countries, all north of the equator, at the top: Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Completing the list were Luxembourg, Israel, and New Zealand in that order.
What is it about the happy seven? They are small (though not as small as Bhutan) with small populations. Tropical islanders like ourselves would describe their climate as cold, very cold, where nights are long and winter garments are worn heated on the inside. Their people are as friendly as they are efficient and despite or because of the cold, smartly productive and hard-working, without the need to kill themselves because of work. Their tax rates are high, but every cent they pay comes back to them in the form of meaningful public services and social benefits.
In the time of pandemic, three points of benevolence stood out: donating to charity, helping a stranger, and volunteerism. Happy to know we share those attributes!