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Customers at a restaurant sunbathe within the Danish capital Copenhagen in June 2023.
Editor’s word: Emma Firth is a journalist and movie producer of Danish and British descent who has lived and labored in each nations. Her views expressed on this remark are her personal. Read extra opinion items on CNN.
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The United Nations’ World Happiness Report, launched final week, ranked Denmark the second happiest nation on the planet for the sixth consecutive 12 months. Denmark is simply behind Finland, which has held the highest spot for the seventh 12 months in a row.
It could also be tempting to suppose that Denmark will all the time be a runner-up. But that most likely means you do not perceive the Danes’ mind-set.
Danish folks have a method of reconstructing conditions that others may take into account lower than superb. Authors Jessica Joel Alexander and Eben Dising Sandahl decide up on this concept of their e-book How to Raise a Child in Denmark, describing Danes as “real looking optimists.” Simply put, Danes are taught to reframe damaging conditions into constructive ones.
For instance, headlines concerning the World Happiness Report don’t concentrate on the truth that Danes as soon as once more got here in second place after Finland, however on the truth that Denmark got here first within the over 60 class. centered. And information reviews don’t concentrate on the truth that Finland is as soon as once more within the ascendancy, as an alternative emphasizing that the hole between the 2 nations is smaller this 12 months than final.
Denmark achieved an total rating of seven.586 this 12 months. Finland was barely increased at 7.804. These scores are calculated based on the Gallup World Poll. The ballot requested about 100,000 folks in 130 nations to charge their lives on a scale of 0 to 10. 0 is the worst life and 10 is the most effective life.
The Happiness Report averages numbers from folks surveyed in every nation over the previous three years. This 12 months’s rankings are primarily based on opinion polls performed between 2021 and 2023. Data can be analyzed by way of a rustic’s GDP per capita, social help, wholesome life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.
Meanwhile, the United States fell out of the World Happiness Report’s prime 20 for the primary time in 12 years, dropping to twenty third place, largely resulting from a decline in satisfaction expressed by 30-year-olds. And youthful.
When I requested Katarina Rakmund, a senior analyst on the Danish Institute for Happiness, what makes Finland happier than Denmark, she jokingly answered, “Sauna.” According to Visit Finland, Finland has 3 million saunas for a inhabitants of 5.5 million, in addition to 188,000 lakes and forests masking 75% of the nation. And the Northern Lights might be seen about 200 nights a 12 months from Lapland, the place Santa Claus lives. There are many issues she likes.
But scientifically, the variations between Denmark and Finland are “so slight that you would be able to’t actually level to them,” Rackmund stated. After all, there is a motive why Denmark has held the title of the happiest nation on the planet 3 times previously. What Denmark and Finland have in widespread, as Rakmund instructed me, is a welfare system that “permits you to fail.”
If you lose your job in Denmark, you possibly can obtain help by unemployment advantages. If you get sick, you do not have to fret about the price of therapy or the standard of therapy. You can take a full 12 months off from work to care on your new child, then return to work with a 75% state-funded youngster care facility. Education is free, together with at universities the place college students obtain a month-to-month state subsidy to cowl residing bills. We do not want a nationwide minimal wage as a result of public housing, abortion rights, and unions are so sturdy.
Family can be essential to Danes. My 80-year-old Danish relative thinks that is why older generations topped this 12 months’s happiness report.
“Families are very close-knit in Denmark, and lots of older persons are comfortable about that,” he instructed me. This togetherness is a part of the idea of hygge, which might be outlined as an off-the-cuff time spent with family members.
Another Danish phrase for the same idea is “fælles”. Literally translated, it means “to share” and consists of the idea of solidarity, and is utilized in phrases corresponding to fællesspisning, an initiative to “eat collectively as a neighborhood,” and fællesang, “singing in a neighborhood.” .
These are nice, genuine Danish concepts, however that does not imply we predict Danes ought to take the highest spot within the World Happiness Report. Even if there have been 3 million saunas. “I’m very comfortable that I did not are available in first place. It signifies that we won’t all be comfortable,” one in every of my Danish relations instructed me with the dry humor typical of the nationwide character. Told.
There’s extra to learn about Danes. They are infamous for being very self-deprecating. They stoically adhere to an unstated social code known as Jante Law, an idea really noticed all through Scandinavia that forestalls people from considering too extremely of themselves. Understatement and humility are admired, even when there’s a diploma of conformity. That additionally applies to nationwide aspirations. The Danes do not want a rating to point out they’re in good condition, they already know that. Why rub your neighbor’s nostril?
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So, again to the World Happiness Report, Finland is all the time the runner-up. Denmark was named the happiest nation in 2012, 2013 and 2016 and will take the highest spot once more sometime. But till that point comes, let me introduce you to a different deeply Danish idea.
This is said to the phrase pyt (pronounced pid), which was chosen by lexicographers as Denmark’s favourite phrase a number of years in the past. A tough English translation could be, “Don’t fear, one thing will occur.” Maybe I’ll be instructed that with a shrug and a slight smile. This is much like the idea that English audio system seek advice from as “water off a duck’s again.”
This permits the Danes to simply accept second place with out an excessive amount of upset.