View: Something is rotten in the happiest state of Finland

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Finland, the country I have been living in off and on for the last six years, is ranked No. 1. The word ‘serendipity’ was coined by Horace Walpole in the 1750s after he read a fairy tale, ‘The Three Princes of Serendip,’ itself an adaptation of Amir Khusro’s 14th century Persian poem, ‘Hasht-Bihisht’ (The Eight Paradises), Serendip being the archaic name for Sri Lanka.

The word, meaning happy happenstances, arose because of my geographical circumstance. ‘Eudaimonia,’ supposedly referred to by Aristotle, means overal life satisfaction. Which is what the World Happiness Report considers for its survey-based ranking.

Finland’s six-year run as the world’s happiest nation has intrigued many. There have been many theories: excellent social welfare system; abundance of nature; and the preponderance of ‘sisu’, a Finnish word that when roughly translated means stoic determination in the face of any adversity. Most Finns I know are bemused by the ranking.

Some groan in disbelief. Others explain it with ‘We are less unhappy than the rest of the world.’ Still others feel the survey is bunkum. At Cannes earlier this year, Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki said tourists visiting Finland should limit their stay to two days because more than that would be ‘unbearable’.

But then, Finns have a sense of humour that matches the darkness of the country’s cold and prolonged winters. Some, though, have found an opportunity. Visit Finland, the official tourism department, is offering ‘a four-day crash course for a happy lifestyle in the world’s happiest nation’.