WHO IS HAPPIEST ???

Do you laugh a lot? Are you happy? Do you enjoy life? Do you 

worry? Are you sad? Are you angry? Researchers examined how every day people

felt about their lot, their life and their prospects.

Their answers were cross-referenced with their country's economic 

social, political, environmental and religious profiles.

What the researchers discovered was that six factors — per capita 

income, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, 

freedom from corruption, having someone to count on in times of 

trouble and personal generosity — accounted for three-quarters of 

the variation in national happiness.

The second point that jumped out of the data was that mental illness 

— a low priority for most governments — was the single most 

important cause of global unhappiness.

Their third observation was that life satisfaction rose in Latin 

America, the Caribbean and sub-Saha-ran Africa and fell in the 

Middle East and Western Europe.

To present their findings in an easy-to-understand package, they 

produced a global quality-of-life ranking.

The top five countries were Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the 

Netherlands and Sweden (Canada placed sixth).

The bottom five were Rwanda, Burundi, Central African Republic, 

Benin and Togo.The United States ranked 17th, Britain 22nd, Japan 

43rd and Russia 68th.

There were a few anomalies they could not explain.

- No country with a population over 50 million made the top 10. This 

suggested a nation's size works against the well-being of its citizens. 

But the researchers could find no evidence to support this 

hypothesis.

- There were sharp differences among the four countries hardest hit 

by the European debt crisis. Greeks were devastated. Spaniards 

and Italians were despondent. Portuguese attitudes were almost 

unaffected. Clearly something other than financial hardship — which 

the researchers could not pinpoint or quantify — was at play.

- Several countries widely regarded as hellholes — Congo, Sudan, 

Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone — fared surprisingly well in the happiness 

rankings. Conversely, a few countries thought to be quite livable — 

Hungary, Armenia, Bulgaria — had unexpectedly low scores.

- Finally, don't assume cynicism is permanent. It fades when people 

see a way forward, see their government making headway and see 

their lives getting better.