The Happy Danes

Professor J,

Another study of which countries are the happiest is upon us and we needn't be surprised; Denmark tops the list. Several things about how the Danes live were cited as possible contributors to their apparent giddiness including: parental leave, healthcare,  prioritized gender equality, biking is the norm, and Danes feel a responsibility to one another.

We Americans must be pretty far down on the scale.

Our government gets around to offering a health care option (which came with a government shut down, and in the country that gave us Bill Gates and Steve Jobs no one could quite figure out how to keep the website functioning and accessible. Healthcare, more than anything else I can think of keeps people awake at night. Even when nothing is wrong. It's one of those things that a financial adviser, when telling you that yes, you can go ahead and take that trip and in the next breath remind you that a devastating illness could wipe it all out.

If you have your health you are wealthy. I don't think enough people grasp that if the smokers and couch potatoes are any indication. But the Danes ride their bikes for transportation and not for a work out. I'm imagining not only the benefits of the physical exercise and being outdoors, but the lack of hassle and expense of owning a car. Geographically impossible in great swathes of the US.

But I think the real key to this study (which happens every year, if this sounds familiar) it that they say they feel responsible for each other.

I wonder how many Americans would say that. We tend to spend a great deal of time outlining who we are not responsible for and why we aren't responsible for them. Entire political platforms revolve around not wanting to be responsible for everything (or nothing) from education to the quality of the air we breathe.  I wonder if the Danes would have also said that they feel responsible to each other. In a universal health care system do they feel the need to take the best care of themselves possible? To not smoke or overeat? Lots of them do smoke so maybe not so much.

In an interview I saw, a woman said one of the things that she thought made them happier than other countries was that "we trust our government."

I can only assume by this comment that she means the majority of Danes don't think that their government lies to them to get them into unnecessary wars, or spies on its citizens, or is more interested in lining their pockets and those of their friends than in doing what is good for the country.

But nah, it's probably the bike thing.