“…Finnish happiness has nothing to do with how jolly they may or may not be as a people. “It has less to do with how ‘ha ha, smiling, happy’ people are, and more to do with: There’s less reason to be unhappy in Finland than any place else. You can think about all the things that can make people unhappy, and Finland has less of them,” he said. He talked about how his children are safe from gun violence, the sacredness of personal time, the knowledge that if he and [his wife] became sick, or couldn’t pay the mortgage, or lost their house, there would be a social safety net there to catch them. “Everyone takes care of everyone else, to some extent,” he said.

Given all this, I expected David to tell me frankly that, no, it’s not possible to “learn to be happy” like a Finnish person, because it’s about what society offers you. That’s not what he said. “It’s also about an acceptance of what you’ve got, and being grateful for it,” he told me. You absolutely could learn.”

The Happiest Place on Earth