The Happy Danes

Whenever I start to worry about the things that never seem to get any easier, I try to take a step back and recognize that I am not the only American who has these same concerns. There are so many people out there who have much greater obstacles than me, and I think about how I should stop for a minute and just be grateful for what I have. It helps, but it never stops those stressful thoughts from coming back to haunt me later.

It's pretty common knowledge that the Danish rank as the happiest population on the planet, year after year. I was thinking about that today for a minute and about how stressed out and miserable the majority of the American population is. I wondered what the differences were between Americans and those Happy Danes and I decided to research it in case there was a lesson to be learned. I wondered if I could possibly benefit from adopting some of their opinions as my own?

There is an article on CBS.com on a study that was conducted about Denmark. The article points out that the common American perception about our lives is that more is always better. And really, that applies to pretty much everything you can think of - our money, the size of our homes, stuff we own, power, responsibility, clothes, a certain body type, vehicles, toys, investments, career ladders, personal goals, etc. Quite honestly, none of these things usually pan out the way the majority of us intend for them to. So we spend our entire lives ignoring the good things while we are trying to achieve more, and worrying about why we can't ever keep up or get enough. In addition, when we don't achieve a particular goal, we are devastated, we feel as though we failed, and we negatively compare ourselves to our colleagues and peers.

I'll throw myself into that mix. Throughout high school, my highest ambitions were to achieve a college degree, get a job that I loved, drive an SUV, own a home, have pets, and spend my spare time doing fun things with my friends. It's interesting that I have already achieved every single one of those things. But now I feel lazy because I don't have a masters degree. I'm embarrassed that I don't make as much money as my friends. I need a new car, my house is too small, and I feel jealous because money prevents me from doing as many fun things as my friends do. At this rate, my attitude will prevent me from ever feeling content with my life or truly appreciating what I have achieved. Nothing will ever be good enough.

The Danish don't have this view about life at all. A successful Danish person characterized as one who is consistently happy, who values and spends time with their family, one who isn't a work-a-holic, one who is passionate about non-materialistic things, and one who may not make a great deal of money but loves to get up and go to work each day. Danes don't make unrealistic expectations about what their life should be; rather, they are happy with their lives as they are and appreciate each moment they are in. They don't set hardly achievable goals like Americans do, but instead they let life happen to them (it's going to anyway) and are overjoyed when the smallest good things happen to them. Most Americans overlook the small good things and even turn good things that happen to us into stress.

In Denmark you also would never find the kind of crime, greed, and corruption that we see plastered all over our news stations on a daily basis. Wouldn't it be cool if America was a nation where there was no need to take something that belonged to someone else for another person's personal gain?

Anyway, just something that made an impact on my day today. I'm not anywhere near able to purchase a new SUV right now... do I really need to gaze longingly at the brand new vehicles on TV and then feel bad about myself for an hour because I can't have one? Why not focus my energies on something that will make my day a little better? Definitely something to think about.