Being happy doesn't mean everything is perfect. It means you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.
~ Unknown
In the November issue of Pioneer magazine an interesting article entitled “The Happiness Index” caught my attention. This index, specifically known as the Happy Planet Index or HPI, is used to measure, in the words direct from their official website, “the well-being of people in the nations of the world while taking into account their environmental impact”. In layman terms, the index measures the life expectancy, life satisfaction and carbon footprint of each country.
Singapore was ranked 49 out of 143 countries. So we’re slightly more than halfway to happiness it seems. However, what I found surprising was that the top 10 ranked countries were not the major developed countries. Other than Vietnam which was ranked 5th, the rest were situated around the rather obscure Latin America region.
In order of happiness:
1. Costa Rica
2. Dominican Republic
3. Jamaica
4. Guatemala
5. Vietnam
6. Columbia
7. Cuba
8. El Savador
9. Brazil
10. Honduras
Searching around for the major cities, we find Germany and Switzerland at 51 and 52 respectively, the first two major European countries in the list. Next comes Italy at 69, followed by France at 71, UK at 74 and Japan at 75. Australia lags behind at 102. But the biggest surprise is America, ranked at 114 and last of the major countries. (You can check out the report for the complete list here.)
Now while it should be a reason to celebrate that we’re a lot happier as a nation than these other major cities, what’s obvious from the list is that our neighbours are doing much much better than we are. Check this out.
Rank Country HPI Score
5 Vietnam 66.5
14 Philippines 59
16 Indonesia 58.9
19 Laos 57.3
20 China 57.1
33 Malaysia 54
39 Burma 51.2
41 Thailand 50.9
80 Cambodia 42.3
And what did Singapore score? 48.2! 6 points short of Cambodia.
So this list is quite an eye opener to me. For starters, it does not mean the more developed your country is, the happier the citizens are going to be and therefore have a longer life. These other higher ranked countries must be doing something right to achieve this much sought after happiness. But the question is what? Perhaps it’s that they aren’t so GDP-centric. While GDP may stimulate the economy, this shouldn’t be used as the measure of the quality of life in Singapore. As the age old saying goes “money can’t buy happiness”.
Furthermore, after looking deeper into the ranking, it shocked me to realize that for a small country we live in, our carbon footprint scoring a 4.2 is tied with Germany while a country as big as India is only scoring 0.9! Obviously more needs to be done to improve this area. Conservation anyone?
Anyway, in conclusion, perhaps it’s time we aim to be happier people, to start being grateful for what we have, complain less and also more importantly, to conserve more.
Food for thought everyone. Have a good night.
Cheers,
~K
