According to a recent international survey, Britain is only 74th in the latest league of world happiness rankings.

According to a report in the Telegraph :-

British people are less satisfied with life than many in poorer countries and use too many of the earth's resources, according to a poll that ranks Britain 74th in the world below Georgia and Burma.

Rather than measure Gross Domestic Product or GDP, the Happy Planet Index or HPI measures life expectancy, happiness and the environmental impact of different nations.

The top ten countries are not the richest nations but middle income countries in Latin America, Asia or the Caribbean where there is a high level of life satisfaction and low carbon footprint.

Costa Rica is the greenest and happiest country on the planet, according to the rankings developed by think tank the New Economics Foundation, followed by the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.

The UK comes in at 74 out of 143 countries behind post-Soviet Georgia at 72, the military dictatorship Burma at 39 and Sri Lanka, which has been scarred by civil war, at 22.

The highest ranking country in the EU was the Netherlands at 43 followed by France at 71 and Germany at 51.

The United States, was ranked at 114, Canada at 89 and Australia at 102. Zimbabwe and other poor African nations, where life expectancy and happiness is low, came bottom of the table.......

[A copy of the full report can be downloaded from this page]

According to another recent report on childhood happiness and well-being, Britain has come bottom of the league tables of all EU countries and the USA :-

http://i625.photobucket.com/albums/t...m/children.jpg

Are you happy as an individual, and where do you think that Britain as a country has gone wrong?

Originally Posted by Midas

There's a lot of truth in that! I'd consider myself generally happy too, but as a nation we do seem to filled with complainers and moaners - often with due cause if this government's abysmal record and the miserable statistics of our national and international performance are anything to go by - and it does seem that the only way you can isolate yourself from that is by being as self contained as possible and just getting on with your own life. Not exactly a healthy situation for those who can't do that though!

Many complainers and moaners are fundamentally happy. Moaning and complaining gave my late mother a purpose in life which was otherwise lacking. That said isn't happiness a fleeting emotion like irritation or disappointment? Shouldn't contentment be our goal? I am fundamentally content, even smugly so at times I am very slightly ashamed to admit, but I am often unhappy for short periods of time interspersed with periods of happiness, joy, disappointment, pride, anger etc. However there is a balance to all these emotions which leaves me with an overall feeling of contentment.