Happiness in Different Countries

What is happiness? There are so many definitions that define happiness. Little children think that happiness is new tow, lovely dog, shiny day or something like this. However, it is not very accurate. It would be better if we define happiness as a state of well-being during which people are having positive emotions and mood.

I would like to compare happiness in three different countries – Lithuania, United States and Tibet.

Firstly, little about Lithuania and perception of happiness here. Unfortunately, Lithuania is not one of the happiest country. It falls to the end of the list. One measure of unhappiness is suicide rate and there are really high number of suicides in our country. What is ineresting that males are more likely to kill themselves that females. On the average 8 of 10 self-murderers are males. So it is a fact that some lithuanians are not satisfied with their lives. Crisis, lower salaries, higher taxes, reports about murders, stealing and other bad events are words that are frequent in Lithuania. So maybe people think that the life is not so good and happy.

American have a different understanding of happiness. The American Dream is an idea which suggests that all people can succeed through hard work, and that all people have the potential to live happy, successful lives and a lot of people from United States have such dream. They think that happiness is a feeling when a person has a good job, earn lots of money, have an opportunity to allow their children to study in prestigious universities and so on.

Finally, I would like to talk about happiness in Tibet. There are totally different perception of happiness. According to a monk from Tibet, people can‘t find happiness or peace simply by changing their external surroundings and what they need is a change on the inside. In this case, people can find their plenitude and happiness and it is important to know that life is not a competition where people should seek to be better than others.

All in all, happiness is subjective state and all people perceive it really differently. For one person it could be money, big house or other material things and for other – it could be the harmonious life and the inner peace.

References:

http://thehappinessshow.com/HappiestCountries.htm

http://junling.wordpress.com/2008/01/30/comparing-happiness-of-different-countries/

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-american-dream.htm

http://sermons.logos.com/submissions/84661-Finding-Happiness-in-Tibet#content=/submissions/84661