Of course, the affective and cognitive dimensions are connected, and they do overlap to some extent. If your days are filled with positive emotions, you are likely to report higher levels of overall life satisfaction. Equally, we can have shitty mornings and still feel we have a wonderful life overall.
To make things a little more complicated, let me introduce a third dimension called eudaimonia. That is the Ancient Greek word for happiness, and it is based on Aristotle’s perception of happiness. To him, the good life was a meaningful and purposeful life. In this book, I will mainly focus on overall happiness – the cognitive dimension – people who feel they have a wonderful life, but we will look at our everyday moods and our sense of purpose as well.
Once we have looked at these three dimensions, what we at the Happiness Research Institute ideally do is to follow people over time. Not in a creepy, stalker kind of way but scientifically.
We monitor large groups of people over long periods of time to see how changes in their lives impact on their happiness. If I were to follow you and ten thousand other people, some significant changes are bound to happen to each individual over the next decade that will make a difference to how happy they are. Some of them will fall in love and some will fall out of love; some will be promoted and some will be fired; some will move to London and some will leave the city; some will break hearts and some will have their hearts broken. Over the next ten years, highs and lows are guaranteed, we are bound to witness victories and losses – and at least one distrait, elbow-patch-wearing scientist will leave his computer on a plane. The question is, how do those events and changes in life circumstance impact on the different dimensions of happiness? What is the average impact on people’s life satisfaction from doubling their income, getting married or moving to the countryside? That is what we try to understand.
The combined average of World Happiness Reports 2013-2017
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Average happiness rating on a scale of 0 to 10
Iceland: 7.48
Finland: 7.41
Canada: 7.4
Netherlands: 7.4
Sweden: 7.35
Australia: 7.3
New Zealand: 7.28
Israel: 7.26
Austria: 7.17
Costa Rica: 7.16
United States: 7.07
Puerto Rico: 7.03
Ireland: 6.97
Luxembourg: 6.93
Belgium: 6.93
Mexico: 6.9
Brazil: 6.85
Oman: 6.85
Germany: 6.84
United Arab Emirates: 6.81
UK: 6.79
Panama: 6.77
Singapore: 6.66
Chile: 6.65
It is not easy. While you may observe that, in general, people living in the countryside are happier than people living in big cities – and perhaps it is true that people’s happiness increases if they move to the countryside – we can’t always be certain about what is the cause and what is the effect. Perhaps people who move to and live in the big cities are less happy not because of the big city but because of the type of person you are if you choose to live in a big city. Perhaps people who are attracted to big cities are more ambitious, and the downside to being ambitious is that you are chronically dissatisfied with the status quo. Ideally, we would undertake experiments with identical twins, separate them at birth and flip a coin to see which twin should grow up and live for the rest of their life in the city and which in the countryside. But the government says that I’m not allowed to do that.
In other words, there are a lot of things we cannot control for and there are a lot of pitfalls in the science of happiness. But the best way to make sure that we do not gain knowledge in this field is to lean back and say that it can’t be done. I am yet to hear a convincing argument why happiness should be the one thing in the world we cannot study in a scientific manner. And yes, it may be easier to sit in our armchairs with our arms crossed, insisting that it can’t be done – but those sorts of people have never discovered new continents or taken man to the moon. What makes me proud to be part of the human race – with all our faults and failures – is our endless curiosity and imagination. We are the only species who will look towards a red, barren planet in the distant sky and think, how do we get up there? So why should we not try to push the boundaries for quality of life? What I see is a big potential to improve happiness through little adjustments in our behaviour. Great things sometimes have small beginnings.
RITUALS OF FOOD AND FIRE
Across from the cabin where I spent my childhood summers, there was an open field of grass. The grass would grow so tall that my brother and I could create tunnels in this green blanket and play there for hours. Some time in June, the field would be mown, and that smell of freshly cut grass will forever transport me back to those days.
The grass would be collected into bales of hay, which would slowly turn yellow under the midsummer sun. Back then, I was sure these were in fact big pieces of Lego forgotten by j?tter – the supernatural giants of Norse mythology. Nevertheless, that did not stop me and the other kids on the street from building houses and labyrinths out of them before the field was cleared to make room for the summer solstice bonfire. The summer solstice may be a pagan ritual, but to this day it remains my favourite tradition. The Nordic sun sets into a night without darkness and the bonfires are lit throughout the country to celebrate midsummer. Remember: Danes are the direct descendants of Vikings, so we enjoy watching things burn: bonfires, candles, villages. It’s all good.
Credit 5
I am not sure I knew what happiness was then, standing there with my bare feet in the grass, my face warmed by the fire, a piece of freshly baked bread in my hand and my parents’ hands on my shoulders, but I am sure I felt what I would later dedicate my career to understanding. As a child, I did not have the words to describe it, but I am sure that, as well as happiness, I felt a sense of community, a sense of belonging, a sense of home. This was my tribe.
The capacity of fire and food to bring people together is almost universal across cultures and geographical borders. And sometimes, we need do no more than light a candle to create a sense of community around our dinner tables.
‘I almost forgot to tell you,’ Janic said. He is a Canadian journalist who had just interviewed me at the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. ‘After I read about hygge, I went out and bought these two chandeliers and we started lighting them at dinner.’ Janic and his wife have three sons: eighteen-year-old twins and a son who is fifteen. ‘At first, when I started lighting the candles for dinner, the boys were like, “Hey, what’s going on? What’s with the romance? Do you want to have dinner alone with Mum?” There was an adjustment period, then they started to light the candles for dinner. But, more importantly, I have noticed that our family dinners are now fifteen to twenty minutes longer, because – how can I describe this? – the candles put the boys in a story-telling mood. They don’t just shovel in the food any more, they sip their wine, they tell us about their day.’ Dinnertime is no longer just about food – it is about togetherness.
Our languages are reminders that sharing food nurtures more than our physical body. It feeds our friendships, bolsters our bonds and nourishes our sense of community – and those factors are vital to our happiness.
Credit 6
Whether you look at the English word ‘companion’, the Spanish word compa?ero or the French copain, they all originate from the Latin com and panis, meaning ‘with whom one shares bread’.