Is Finland really the happiest country in the world? The Finns weigh
For the fifth year in a row, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world in the UN-sponsored World Happiness Report. And for the fifth year in a row, I’m surprised. I lived in Finland as a student of the year in the Rotary Youth Exchange Program 2001-2002. It was a life-changing experience. I made amazing Finnish friends. I drank too much vodka. I iron reindeer in Lapland. I took a sauna, swam on the ice, and cycled naked in the snow until my pink body looked like a honey-fried ham. It was definitely one of the happiest years of my life. But my Finnish friends? Well, I’m not entirely sure if they’ve ever been so happy.
In my experience, Finns have one of the most restrained people on the planet. There are no glaring signs of joy in their playbook. I remember my quiet breakfast with my first hostess as I watched her stare out the window, barely acknowledging my presence. He was not rude. He was Finnish. In my high school, too, managing the classrooms at Imatra Joint High School was not a problem. Behavior is not a problem when no one is talking. Even when I joined a schoolmate for aerobics classes at a local gym, the atmosphere was more of a quiet disco than a fitness frenzy. Was this low-key melancholy vibe lucky? Do Americans – who came in 16th in the World Happiness Report – have this whole happiness thing wrong?
I decided to contact my Finnish friends to find out: Is the world happiness report correct? Are Finns really that happy?
“We have a saying in Finland: ‘If you’re happy, you have to hide it,'” says Veera Lavikkala, a consultant for a software company in Kirkkonummi on the west side of Helsinki.
“Finns’ happiness is restrained,” admits Katja Pantzar, an expert on the subject, who has written the book “Everyday Sisu: Tapping into Finnish Fortitude for a Happier, Resilient Life”. Pantzar was born in Finland before his family moved to New Zealand and eventually to Vancouver, BC, where he grew up. When he was offered the opportunity to work for Finnair’s airline 20 years ago, he returned to his home country and has never looked back. In fact, he is so enthusiastic about the Finnish lifestyle – including its regular sauna trips and cycling-friendly urban planning – that he has written two books on the subject. And he has a special view of the Finnish psyche. “They may be completely happy, but they don’t have the same body language as they smile,” he says. But don’t let the faces of Finnish poker fool you. If there is faith in the world happiness report, Finns disguise deep satisfaction based on appreciation for a society in the public interest.
“Everyone has the basics in their hands,” says Liisi Hatinen, Espoo’s communications coordinator outside Helsinki, and a mother of two. She talks about guaranteed health care, free schooling, livelihoods and affordable housing. “These programs are well thought out and work, so it’s the foundation for happiness.”
Where the success of other nations, including our own, is measured by material wealth – the right car, a bigger house, the best workplace, a better neighborhood – Finns get satisfaction from elsewhere. This was never clearer to me than on Christmas Eve 2001. As is the custom in Finland, Santa Claus arrived at the home of my host family that evening to greet my enthusiastic 4-year-old host brother Otto. We ate a good meal, exchanged small gifts, and went to bed. I then closed my bedroom door and quietly cut open a huge box full of gifts my parents had sent me. I tore the paper as subtly as possible so as not to warn my host; Showing American superiority was far too embarrassing. But to my surprise, when my host sisters found my holiday catch the next day, they simply said, “Oh, that’s nice,” and there was a clear envy between them. The joy of sharing the holiday with the family seemed rewarding enough. Who needed more stuff?
“We want to achieve things in our lives,” says Johanna Ovaska, the principal of Imatra High School and a mother of two. “But it’s not like ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians.'”
Essi Ala-Kokko, a 46-year-old photographer in Kauhajoki who moved to an art school in Chicago, fell in love and stayed, saying, “I’ve come to the conclusion that it has to be that way. We’re just happy with very few. “We don’t have to have a lot of money. We like simple things in life, like walking in the woods and hanging out with friends.”
Enjoying downtime is easy thanks to the balance between Finnish work and private life. “We are getting a five-week holiday,” says strategy consultant Jukka Multisilta from Helsinki. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this is unlike the average 10-day paid time off for Americans. Multisilta recently joined a friend on a 10-day motorcycle trip from Helsinki to the northernmost tip of Norway, Nordkapp. Along the way, he and his friends had free access to the desert roads maintained by the Finnish national park system, which made outdoor activities more affordable. The trip was awesome, he says. “The light is so crazy when you go north, so everything looks magical.”
Of course, Finns do not have to drive at all to get to nature. There are green areas everywhere in more than 5 million countries. “I have four winter swimming holes within a two-mile radius of my house,” Pantzar says. But let’s be true: although ice attacks are believed to be physically and mentally beneficial, I find it hard to believe that Finns are polar bears swimming happily.
Nor is forest walking the answer, though I’m sure it’s good for mindfulness. Tuition free education though? It will improve your mood. Sure, Finns pay more taxes on the privilege, but my friends tell me that not sweating university expenses was worth it.
Lavikkala and his sister were the first of his family to go to high school, he says, and they “both went to college. We both have degrees. We didn’t have to take out a student loan. If you have the ability, you can be what you want in Finland.”
I have to laugh. I recently opened 529 college savings accounts for my son. He is 6.
And that’s the thing. There are many stressors that Finns, especially Finnish women, do not have to worry about.
“I really believe that the status of women is a big thing in our happiness,” Ovaska says. “Have you seen our government? We have a female prime minister. She is [36] years old. Then we have four other prime ministers who are also young women. So it’s a pretty big girl force. ”
Reaching the highest ranks of public office is not such a wild idea when the government really supports motherhood. Hatinen is now on maternity / parental leave for the 12th month. He could take a total of three years if he wanted to, but chose a little over a year. “I get 70% of my salary and then if I extend the time after 10 months, I think it will drop to 300 euros [about $330] “Finland offers free general day care from eight months to the start of formal education at the age of seven,” according to the World Economic Forum. when it ran out, we enrolled my son in Montessori school, his monthly payment was the same as our mortgage.
But more importantly, if a woman or her baby becomes ill in Finland, regardless of the prognosis, the treatment will not be as devastating financially as it may be in the United States and elsewhere.
“I am going to tell the boy soon about his birth,” says Sirja Lassila, a Swedish teacher and mother of two in Imatra. Three weeks before the due date, he had noticed that his baby had suddenly stopped moving in the womb. Her husband drove her to a nearby hospital where she underwent emergency C-surgery. The boy, who was resuscitated after giving birth, still needed intensive care, so he was rushed by ambulance 142 miles to Helsinki, the country’s best children’s hospital. He received good care and got home – again by ambulance – a week later.
“It wasn’t completely free,” he says in a correction email to me the day after our interview. I prepare for the character and roll the email down. According to a study by the Health Care Cost Institute, more than 350,000 commercially insured deliveries in 35 U.S. states between 2016 and 2017, with average consumption per Department C of $ 17,004. Average own expenses ranged from $ 1,077 in Washington DC to $ 2,473 in South Carolina. “We paid some bills, a total of about 200-300 euros,” he writes, or about $ 220-330. How is that a happy ending?
Of course, life is not perfect in Finland. Toni Tikkanen, the documentary screenwriter of the Finnish TV series “Arman Under the North Star”, quickly tells me that racism, inequality, violence, depression and suicide take place there, as elsewhere in the world. . But he adds, “I think as a nation we’re working hard to bring about a change for the better, and we have a pretty strong support system.” So is Finland the happiest country? Tikkanen says yes.
After discussing with these Finns, I have also agreed. It turns out that I had a Finnish happiness wrong. The resting Finnish face is not rude, it is restrained serenity. And even if I never exchanged my American passport for any nation born of the idea of happiness, we could consider what Finns can teach us on this subject. While the American ethos of fighting for personal success is admirable, a Finnish system that ensures that no one has to worry about basic needs – well, it sounds like a recipe for happiness to me.