Happiness?

I just finished reading The Geography of Bliss, One Man's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner

Weiner, who is a NPR correspondent, travels the world in pursuit of happiness.  He travels from Amsterdam to Switzerland to Bhutan to Iceland to Qatar to Moldova to name a few.  He is a journalist so each step of the journey involves several interviews and factual information about where he is.  He is funny and quite the curmudgeon.

Some of his subjects, ex-pats, have found themselves much happier in their adopted land.  It is as if each of these people belonged in their now prospective countries.  Somehow they were born in the wrong place.

There is lots of research on what makes people happy.  Is it money?  No but it does make life easier.  One of the happiest people in the book lived in the slums of India and was incredibly happy.  Happiness seems to be the ability to take ownership of your own life.  All and all, a really interesting and good read. 

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Comments (Archived):

  1. areeya

    interesting!