I visited the happiest country. I wish I could unlearn its secret

https://slate.com/life/2025/08/travel-finland-happiest-country-united-states.html

27•prawn•5mo ago

Comments

adithyassekhar•5mo ago

Non paywalled link https://archive.is/PpOir

gsf_emergency_2•5mo ago

Poem quoted in TFA (line1)

https://runosto.net/eino-leino/hiihtajan-virsia/laulu-onnest...

Tl;dr

1. Finns have no reason to be unhappy

2. moderation (for the people, by the people, when one is not alone, drinking)

wtcactus•5mo ago

These self reported metrics (like mostly everything else in Social Sciences) don’t mean anything.

Finland sits about middle in the EU on suicide rates.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/e...

nis0s•5mo ago

This kind of comment is under appreciated. I don’t have any opinions on the OP, but I really hope that more people would start using statistics published by neutral third-parties, whenever someone puts out some news article, to either support or counter the information presented in the article they just read.

stevekemp•5mo ago

And currently we have the second highest unemployment rate in the EU:

https://yle.fi/a/74-20175260

That said Finland is a lovely country to move to. Raising a child here in particular has meant I really appreciate the support, and services/facilities available. From the daycares, onwards.

Sure the taxes are high, but when you have good public transport, good services, and so on it's hard to resent them too much.

netsharc•5mo ago

Ah, capitalism.. The implication is that employment = happiness.

I'm not saying Finland doesn't follow this religion..

r_lee•5mo ago

So you'd be happy to live basically with little to no money for anything except for necessities?

Oh and no proper healthcare (because you need private insurance from employment or money)

bergie•5mo ago

The taxes aren't even that high if you compare with for example Germany. And in Finland they include healthcare and education etc

kissaprofeetta•5mo ago

Add things like - Shitty climate, darkness for almost half a year and lousy snowless winters as of late. - Dire economic situation, almost 1/5 of population facing the risk of poverty. - Ever increasing cutting of social services, education and everything culture.

Makes you wonder how Finland can be the most content country in the world

moffkalast•5mo ago

And mandatory conscription and the constant threat of Russian invasion.

sentinelsignal•5mo ago

I didnt know about the 'dire economic situation' and the '1/5 risk of poverty' could you elaborate on that or have some sources?

r_lee•5mo ago

r/finland, r/suomi for personal accounts/discussion and just official statistics that get published

This information can be found everywhere at this point

pavlov•5mo ago

This happiness survey tells us something about people’s expectations for their own life, which is not completely without value.

Note that the scale is calibrated by what the respondent considers possible:

”Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you, and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

In some other countries, the bar for that personal “top of the ladder” is set extremely high by more visible income inequality and concepts like the American Dream which suggest that everyone could/should be a billionaire.

In Finland, a prevailing pessimism keeps expectations in check. (You can see examples of this pessimism in sibling comments here.) Good things are a happy surprise, not something you were promised.

Fade_Dance•5mo ago

It would even argue that this question (when taken on a average over many responses) is primarily about perceived economic and social mobility.

fragmede•5mo ago

Why is mobility important if I'm happy with what I've got, and aren't chasing a billionaire's lifestyle?

cainxinth•5mo ago

Suicide rates are also an imperfect metric. Suicide has a stigma, which can lead to misclassification as accidents and other types of underreporting. Also, some societies, like Finland, are much more open to the concept of euthanasia than others.

olegp•5mo ago

If you happen to already be in the capital of the happiest country, you should know that we have a Hacker News meetup here: https://bit.ly/helsinkihn

Hopefully this will make you even happier!

metalman•5mo ago

Good read,well done journalism mixed with influencesce travelog observations, personal discovery, and a few deeply British funny bits. Lucky for me my browser ignores pay walls,while there are no pictures,sometimes the writing is evocative enough to make them redundent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baHsoEAAMZU

shmeeed•5mo ago

Could you elaborate on that browser?

cmacleod4•5mo ago

Reader mode in Firefox worked for me :-)

shmeeed•5mo ago

Ah, thank you for reminding me of that trick, indeed it works for Slate. Unfortunately that's not the case on many other paywalled sites.

user____name•5mo ago

Such negative commentary in here.

sam_goody•5mo ago

In the news, everything is polarized and negative.

On the streets, in my anecdotal experience of 1, everyone is happy, friendly, and things are good. There is disagreement but tolerance about politics, and in most cases a assumption of "not bad" faith.

My high school principal once told me - you cannot be happy, nor by extension do anything productive, within 1 hour of reading the news.

I don't own a smartphone, and I suspect that has to do with my narrow experience. But, I really wonder how much the various media outlets are negatively shaping reality.

r_lee•5mo ago

Right now there is a lot of depression going around in Finland. A lot of people can't find jobs, overall stagnation and anxiety.

I don't think many are too fond of the whole "happiest country" label right now

owenversteeg•5mo ago

I can't stand the conflation of "satisfied" and "happy." It's insane. There is more happiness in one Zimbabwean (country "happiness" rank: 143) than in one hundred Icelanders (country "happiness" rank: 2, worldwide antidepressant consumption rank: 1.) Go stand in a crowd of people and count the fucking smiles and the fucking laughter.

It is all part of this broader wave of newspeak. If you can quite literally redefine happiness, you can redefine anything. Nothing has meaning anymore. You will live alone, you will consume antidepressants, you will be protected from the sunlight, you will not smile, you will not laugh, and you will be happy.

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I visited the happiest country. I wish I could unlearn its secret

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