Are you happy now?

By Park Moo-jong

Finland, known for its people's love of forests, lakes and saunas is the happiest country on this planet, according to the United Nations World Happiness Report 2019.

The “small” Nordic country of 5.5 million people has topped the annual index of the happiest nations twice in a row as it has succeeded in generating a happiness recipe “for a balanced life, not simply dependent on economic and material wealth.”

For reference, the World Happiness Report, produced by the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network, ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.

It is based on factors including economic wealth, life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices and levels of government corruption.

Other Nordic countries such as Denmark, Norway and Iceland, as well as the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand and Austria also made the top 10. They are all well known to be stable, safe and socially progressive with very little corruption.

Then, how about South Korea? The rankings of the United States, China and Japan also draw interest with regard to the situation on the Korean Peninsula involving the issue of North Korea's denuclearization.

South Korea ranked 54th, up from the previous year's 57th, while Japan dropped to 58th from 54th and China is far below at 93rd. The “rich” U.S., despite its booming economy in the past few years, dropped from 18th to 19th.

In particular, South Korea is almost at the bottom of the happiness rankings of the 34-member rich country club, the OECD, even though it became the seventh country in the world last year to join the so-called “30-50” club of economic powers that have a per capita income surpassing $30,000 and a population of over 50 million.

So I asked 10 persons aged between 20 and 70 from various walks of life after the U.N. report was released last week: “Are you happy now?”

As expected, their answers were generally negative, irrespective of their economic condition and social status.

Their negative answers were directly against the result of the survey a state-run institute conducted a year ago: One in five Koreans is unhappy. They think they are less happy than the national average based on the government's statistics.

They agreed that the growth of per capita income has little to do with their happiness and life satisfaction, saying that the situation is not expected to improve in the near future.

Economic wealth, of course, must be an important element for happiness, but not the sole yardstick to measure it.

A pile of social problems can be blamed for the erosion of happiness. People are getting increasingly sick of the ever-deepening conflict between the progressives supporting the incumbent Moon Jae-in government and the conservatives of the previous administration.

The people, except for the Moon supporters, are unhappy with the Moon administration's unswerving policy to dig into the so-called “deep-rooted evils” of the past without looking forward.

The worsening divide between the haves and the have-nots also adds to the erosion of the cohesion and trust between people which are vital for happiness based on the feeling of safety and security.

What prevents the people from happiness could be living in the past and observing others for comparison about the difference in income, not the level of income.

The people's feeling of unhappiness is also proof that the social security network, a very important basis for public happiness, does not work properly.

The higher a country is ranked in the happiness index, the better its social welfare system is.

As proved by the Nordic countries placed in the top of the happiness index, strengthening the social welfare system has nothing to do with pork-barreling apparently targeting elections.

In addition, no progress in “persuading” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear weapons in return for economic aid is aggravating the people's feeling of happiness.

The U.N. report clearly shows that money can't buy happiness.

This would mean that a person's happiness depends on how they think of it, as an English proverb states: “One is happy when he or she thinks himself or herself so.”

Here are some quotes about happiness.

The Greek philosopher Democritus (460 B.C.-370 B.C.) said: “Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold. Happiness dwells in the soul.”

The remarks of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), sixth president of the U.S., could be a good lesson for those who think they are unhappy: “Do not worry; eat three square meals a day; say your prayers; be courteous to your creditors; keep your digestion good; exercise; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy ...”

Of them, I like what Helen Keller (1880-1968) said: “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

To become happy even for a while, how about reading Ernie J. Zelinski's 1999 book, “Don't Hurry, Be Happy” or listening to Bob McFerrin's 1988 a cappella song, “Don't Worry, Be Happy”?

Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974.