America's Happiest States;1 Louisiana
2 Hawaii
3 Florida
4 Tennessee
5 Arizona
6 Mississippi
7 Montana
8 South Carolina
9 Alabama
10 Maine
What's odd about this list is the number of "Poor" states included.
Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Hawaii also score fairly low in most literacy ratings.
But how can this be so?
How can poor and under-educated people be so happy?
Don't these people watch MTV Cribs, My Super Sweet Sixteen, or any of the Real Housewives shows?
Are these people too dumb to know that they are dumb and poor?
Or maybe they have a different measure of what it is to be "Poor".
Residents of Hawaii have an identity. These residents know that they are Hawaiian.
The same could be said of the Cajun and Creole cultures of Louisiana.
While differing from most popular American ideas of "Rich" - these people seem to recognize what Popeye the Sailor Man had realized a half century earlier ("I y'am what I y'am.").
The list stuck me as interesting because the Top Ten does not include;
Texas - Maybe suffering from a Jan Brady (second place) complex?
California - Has it become too big and successful and focused on itself for it's own good?
New York - Was wealth not all that it was cracked up to be?
Utah - Does piety have it's limits?
Were the Native Americans more or less happy before the Europeans arrived?
Did Africa have more or less turmoil before the Europeans arrived?
Was Australia better off before England dropped off all it's prisoners?
What I'm asking is; Is it really better to have everyone thinking and acting the same way, or are we better off just being ourselves?
2 comments:
I'm not sure one can find anything substantial in these surveys as happiness is more individual than societal, as well as fluid rather than static.
I am happier at one time, sadder at another.
An activity or situation that caused me happiness at one time, may later provide just the opposite.
I have been quite happy having left Utah more than five 8 years ago... yet unhappy to not have Snowbird 20 minutes from my front door.
I've often thought that the best times in my life were those when I had little or nothing.
I had no stress and no worries.
While we would often wish for better - we always appreciated what we already had.
I think the ability to appreciate what one already has may be the key to happiness.
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