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東南亞 最快樂的國家—台灣
The World Happiness countries
(CNN) — Finland has a lot to celebrate.
Not only does it have a capital city bursting with gastronomic creativity, the spectacular Northern Lights and Santa Claus's year-round home (plus the reindeer support staff) in Lapland. It's also the happiest country in the world for the second year in a row, according to the latest World Happiness Report.
It's followed by Denmark, Norway, Iceland and The Netherlands.
The World Happiness Report was released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations on March 20, the date that the United Nations has declared to be the International Day of Happiness.
The report ranks countries on six key variables that support well-being: income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support and generosity.
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Taiwan's Pursuit of Happiness: Can We Trust the World Happiness Report?
Daphne K. Lee
Taiwan is the happiest country in East Asia, according to the 2019 World Happiness Report (WHR) produced by the United Nations. Among 156 countries, the survey panel ranked Taiwan 25th on the list, with Japan ranking 58th and China 93rd.
Finland topped the chart for the second year, while Denmark came in second. Hygge, a Danish word describing a lifestyle that celebrates coziness and comfort, became a buzzword in 2016 since Denmark had consistently been named the happiest country on earth. The Swedish lagom, which praises a moderate lifestyle, also became a trend as more people wanted to understand how Scandinavians were so happy.
But how reliable is the World Happiness Report? What purpose does it serve?
According to the report, a country’s average happiness is calculated using the following six variables provided by the Gallup World Poll: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption.
“I believe Taiwan would score high in life expectancy, social support, and generosity,” says Po-wen Chen, a Taipei resident. “But I don’t feel any growth in GDP; it’s only reflected in housing prices. Even if there’s a 3 percent growth, the benefits would go to the capital owners, not the working class.”
The survey relies on subjective self-reporting that asks participants to evaluate their answers on a scale of 0 to 10. The result is derived from data collected from 2016 to 2018, with an annual sample size of 1,000 people.
“A sample size of 2,000 to 3,000 is large enough to give a fairly good estimate at the national level,” says the report in its FAQ section.
These few thousand people in each country then rate their happiness based on various factors. The measurement of social support, for example, asks “If you were in trouble, do you have relatives or friends you can count on to help you whenever you need them, or not?”
If the WHR counted economic security as one of the major metrics of happiness, then it must have missed the memo on Taiwan’s wage crisis. The subjective question of social support might also simply be a reflection of the Taiwanese culture of having large and multigenerational families and valuing filial piety and community over one’s independence. And in terms of corruption, Taiwan’s score in the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) was far behind its peers such as Singapore and Japan.
Within the same data set from the Gallup World Poll, the measurement of “positive affect” is defined by one’s emotional happiness. It asks the participants if they have felt happiness, smiled or laughed a lot yesterday. In this section of the poll, Paraguay is ranked first, followed by Somalia and Iceland. Taiwan is ranked 17th on the same list, even higher than its final ranking.
The small sample size in the poll, however, does not necessarily reflect mental health issues in the happiest regions. In Finland, the world’s happiest country according to the WHR, suicide is responsible for one-third of all deaths among teenagers and young adults. The Happiness Research Institute’s recent report also raised concerns about mental health struggles in the Nordic region. Similarly, suicide rates have been steadily rising in Taiwan in spite of its favorable happiness ranking.
The differing results then raise the question of whether happiness should be defined by the emotional state of an individual, or by a country’s overall well-being and prosperity.
“People around me are generally quite content even though they do have small day-to-day complaints,” says Sylvia Liu, a Tainan homestay owner. “Taiwanese do seem happier than other East Asians, but less so when compared to Europeans. Our society values group identity, which makes self-actualization more difficult.”
Should anyone even attempt to rank happiness? To do so, one has to first define and standardize happiness, a human emotion. The problematic ranking on world happiness divides such an emotion into six factors. When the report triggers worldwide coverage each year, it is no longer a survey but a global reference – one that neglects reality and alienates individuals.
The ranking of happiness takes the public focus away from the WHR’s more in-depth discussions. Beyond a survey of global happiness, the WHR does a better job at examining issues of particular importance in the United States, such as voting behavior, digital media influence and, addiction. The 2019 report’s discussion on the relationship between big data and well-being is far more intriguing than whether Finland or Denmark is the happiest country: Does a lack of privacy improve a society’s operation? Will big data better predict our well-being?
The Benefits of Not Jumping to Conclusions
By Hilary Jacobs Hendel psychcentral
Human brains simplify information under stress. Largely out of awareness, we have a tendency to categorize experiences into extremes of good and bad, black and white, right or wrong. Most of life, however, happens in the gray areas. We lose the subtleties that are always there if we are too quick to know.
When I take something personally or feel stung by something someone said or did, I try to remind myself to get curious about other meanings, other ways of understanding the moment. For example, if someone is rude to me at a store, I could easily get angry and think to myself, “What a jerk!” But that thought process also gets me more riled up. That way of thinking fuels my anger, which makes me feel more agitated. My goal is to keep calm.
So, as an alternative, I could think, “Perhaps this person is acting this way because she is suffering. Maybe something I am not aware of is happening in her life that is making her act rude.” Maybe she just lost someone she loves. Maybe she had a terrible fight with her partner that morning. Or maybe she just received a scary medical diagnosis from a doctor. Knowing those reasons are all possible helps me access compassion both for the person acting rude and myself for getting “dumped on.”
It takes some focus to resist the temptation to “know.” Instead of giving in to your brain’s natural inclination to be sure about what’s happening, look for nuance and the unknown. This approach is a particularly useful parenting strategy. Let’s say my child or stepchild, Marcia, comes home and allows the front door to slam. My thinking brain might be quick to generalize that the reason she slammed the door was out of hostility toward me.
But there may be other reasons that have nothing to do with me. I have the power to resist this natural temptation of the brain to come to quick judgments. Instead, I can call upon my aware self to become curious. I could think to myself, “I wonder why Marcia slammed the door?” Then I might sift through the various reasons one could slam a door: by mistake from slippery fingers or forgetting to hold it; or because she is angry at herself or someone else; or because she wants attention and to let someone know she is home, albeit in a childish way. Maybe you can come up with some other reasons as well.
I can’t know my child’s intent for sure until I ask her (and that is assuming she knows her own motivations and will disclose them to me.) The important point here is not to jump too quickly to conclusions or be too quick to respond harshly.
Ultimately, I might decide to ask her why she slammed the door or simply make a request that she not to do that because it hurts my ears. But I would also take the slam as a cue to actively notice and tune in to her emotional state. I slow myself down to notice her facial expression, body posture and the like. This may give me most of the information I need to make a preliminary assumption and then tailor my question or request accordingly.
If I can see that she is in a sullen mood, I can ask her how her day was out of concern and take it from there. Later on, when she is in a better mood, I can address the door slam and avoid a fight that might have ensued if I had confronted her the moment she walked in.
People often make snap judgments and reactions. In a moment of tension or conflict, it is important to remember that our brains are generalizing and drawing assumptions based on our prior experiences and histories. We have the choice, however, to remain open to new information, to increases our understanding of what is happening between two people in the present moment, and to curtail assumptions.
Since everyone is different, if we generalize based on our quick assumptions, which come from our unique histories, we lose valuable information available in the present. We need to try to see and understand a current moment through the minds of others, and not only as a reflection of our own unique lens and our own unique history. We can do that by keeping an open mind first and foremost. After that, there is communication. When someone in our midst acts in a way we don’t like, there is nothing better than communicating our curiosity and desire to understand their true intent.
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