The recently announced findings of the 2024 World Happiness Survey compiled by the United Nations, glumly reported that — for the first time since the data was gathered — the United States has dropped out of the top 20 happiest countries.
The U.S. is now well behind No. 11, Finland (Brr!), and trailing even up-and-coming Lithuania. That's particularly ironic as that is exactly the country my ancestors fled from a century ago in search of a happier life in America, one step ahead of the advancing Russian army.
The researchers asked respondents to envision their lives on a ladder and to rate themselves at the top rung (10) down to a lowly one.
Along with the grim task of wading through the massive report detailing why the denizens of 20 other countries would rather stay put, I took no joy in the self-evident finding that we’re still well ahead of Afghanistan.
That's the unhappy news.
Now for the other news. It appears that my collection of cranky knees, stiff joints, and loaded calendar of doctor appointments is nothing compared to the soaring rents, unpaid college loans and COVID-imposed isolation of 20-somethings — who I simply assumed were running marathons, getting high and having sex galore while I was just trying get out of my chair. The biggest drop in reported happiness in the U.S. came from Americans under 30, who now have earned the garland of most-bummed-out generation ever.
Who knew that all the time I was searching for happiness by wanting to be 20 again, I should have been empathetic to the chorus of actual 20-year-olds crying, “Be careful what you wish for, gramps”?
“Part of the problem,” saidEric Weiner, a so-called happiness expert, is that Americans have a huge expectation of happiness and that by the time we advance into decrepitude, we simply know better.
Which I admit is a small consolation but still it’s a reminder, as if I needed one, that practically everything I feared was true turns out to be absolutely wrong.
And that, in its way, makes me happy.
Robert Chipkin mostly happily lives and writes in Springfield.
