Happiness Trends

Early to bed.  Well, that was the plan.  I wanted this day to end and end quickly.. but well… To guarantee the ‘well’, I would read a few feeds, catch up on at least the most recent of the talented bastards that I read and then climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.  Bed by 9:30.  At the latest.  But nooo… you all have to go and be entertaining and all that.  Damn you all.

I then checked my email - realised I got… one or two from people I should answer to.  I haven’t.  Yet.  The reason is… I’m lazy.  I’m sorry.  Tomorrow is Friday and I’ll do my damnedest to get to you all.  It’s just… y’know?!

And then I saw this (opens .doc file).  It’s the findings on the Happiness Trends of various countries between 1946 and 2006.

Go on, can you guess what the UK’s trend is?  This got me to thinking, if we are trending towards more miserable since the end of the Second World War… then what the hell is is going to make us India, China, Canada or France (rising trends) or even the US with a flat trend - not getting happier, not getting more miserable?  And what would the last two years show?

This rolled around in my head for a bit along with finding out that Denmark is the happiest place on Earth
and then the reason for our downturn on the happiness front filtered through.  We were incredibly happy in 1946.  We’d had the war, we had rations, we had to struggle through every day - live was hard.  We British are never happier than when we’ve got something communal to whinge about.   That’s why we talk about the weather so much!  With that kind of start, where else could the figures go but down?

So, I ask you (ignoring the real figures) do you think your country has got more or less happy?

And now I am going to close my eyes and dream of another day…