Anna-Lena Laurén: No, we finns are not the least bit happy

In my country, this is regarded a positive view of life as a sign of incipient sinnessvaghet. An intellectual person can't be happy. To the forehead deep in the crease to conclude that all goes to hell is the best way for a Finnish politician to win the people's love.

ministers are generally ministers of finance. Iiro Viinanen (minister of finance 1991-1996) and Sauli Niinistö (minister of finance, 1996-2003) loved highly by the finns because they are not talked about something other than woe and misfortune, the coming of the day of judgment, sovereign debt and declining GDP. Finally someone who understands that everything goes to the forest, cheered the Finnish people and made Viinanen and Niinistö to röstmagneter.

Now, then, for the second year in a row appointed to the world's happiest people of the united nations ” World Happiness Report”. You can only respond with a few lines from one of Pentti Saarikoskis last collections of poetry.

”If I didn't know that it is I who live in that house / I would think / that there are the lucky people.”

The study has focused on factors such as GDP, social safety nets, life expectancy, and the absence of corruption. You have also asked the respondents how they perceive their quality of life, on a scale from zero to ten. I think that the misunderstanding about our happiness is derived out of this question.

In Finland, it is inappropriate to complain about how you have it. Luther sits on our shoulder and asks us to be thankful. Therefore, it is likely that finns who are asked to assess their own quality of life perceive it as higher than a Swedish.

people are more eager to constantly improve their quality of life than in Finland. The swedes put a lot of energy to max out the parental leave, vacation, pension, insurance. My cousin who works on a ferry between Helsinki and Stockholm, said that the majority of customers that will come back to taxfreebutiken that they want to replace their purchases are swedes. Swedes do not think it is embarrassing to show displeasure.

For us finns, however, it is embarrassing to return to the taxfreebutiken to max out our purchases by switching to be purchased against another, which we think is a little better. We bulls rather.

And now you may excuse me, I need to sulk over this damned survey.