Happiness Report

The United Nations’ 2018 World Happiness Report came out last week.

I read a little of it.

Got unhappy.

Maybe it was because I skipped ahead to Chapter six which is titled, Happiness in Latin America Has Social Foundations by Mariana Rojas. It tells how despite all the problems in Latin America there is a surprising level of happiness in those countries south of us. The study said, “it is explained by the abundance of family warmth and other supportive social relationships.…Happiness research has shown that relationships are important for people’s happiness; and that positive relationships are abundant in Latin America.” It seems that having a lot of strong relationships helps buffer them from the stress of the problems around them. Perhaps having a more relaxed view about life helps too!

I mentally compared our American society with Latin American society. We're less family oriented and more task and money oriented. Driven is another way to put it.

I suspect that American society actually encourages dissatisfaction. (We ranked 18th in the study.) We seem to idolize "progress" and feel we have to constantly “improve” everything and “get ahead” no matter what. Contentment is almost seen as un-American. The Apostle Paul said godliness with contentment is great gain. I don’t think many American Christians really believe that. We brush that verse aside fairly quickly.

Although we did rank higher than most of the Latin American countries in the happiness scale, I think we could learn some things from our Latin neighbors. (from Aussies too—they ranked 10th!)

Of course you may be thinking they, the Latin Americans that is, need to learn a few things from us too. Yes, undoubtedly.

Chapter six also says they are not as task oriented and that they are more concerned with living within existing conditions rather than changing things. Of course they don’t all feel that way which may explain why some of them come here where, as one Mexican said to me once “everything works.” (meaning things like the lights, water, roads. You know, all that infrastructure stuff we take for granted!)


But I think that God is more relationship oriented than task oriented. And we would do well to learn to be also.

Anyway I got depressed. Felt lonely. We don’t have much family in our area. And I haven’t managed to produce any children to bless our parents in their old age, or our old age either.

Church should be like family. But it’s not really the same. It falls short. I fall short. I don't reach out enough. Mostly, I guess, from fear of rejection. (which I am aiming to overcome!). And everyone’s so busy. We’re busy too.

I can’t change where our relatives live. Nor can I single-handedly change society.

By Sunday morning I was starting to see reality more clearly. I realized one thing I can change is how warmly I express my relational feelings toward others. So I made it a point to initiate a few more hugs during greeting time at church than I usually do. It was surprising how warmly they were received and how much better I felt too.

I also remembered the verse that says it is not wise to compare ourselves with others. Of course I also have heard plenty of stories of how bad things are in Latin America so that also tempered what I had read in the WHR.

It helped too to remember studies show that focusing a lot of attention on being happy can lead to the opposite feeling.

I didn’t detect any mention of how religious faith fits into a person’s level of happiness in the WHR. Being that it is produced by the UN I suspect that they are trying to substitute secular ideas of well-being because they may not believe in anything else. 

To paraphrase Jesus, what good is it for a person to be very happy but lose his own soul?


The study does have a variety of other interesting information such as how generosity and being welcoming of immigrants makes everyone in the society happier.

Also, Chapter seven looks at how the serious conditions of: obesity, substance abuse, and depression are affecting American society. The author of that chapter, Jeffrey Sachs, believes those help explain the fact that although income per capita has more than doubled in America since 1972, happiness has remained the same or even declined.

Think about it!

I think the rise of social media and increasing fragmentation of society could also explain some of that in recent years. And 1972 is also infamous for being when abortion was legalized. How could we really be happy with so much innocent blood on our hands?