Do Not Be Deceived By The Title
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Do not be deceived by the subtitle "One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World". Mr. Weiner begins his one year quest to find the happiest places in the world in The Netherlands, where he analyzes professor Ruut Veenhoven's "World Database of Happiness". This database comprises numerous countries ranked based on responses to happiness surveys. Listed in the top five are Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Iceland and Finland, only two of which the author travels to; Switzerland and Iceland. Clearly, this is hardly a search for the happiest places on earth, especially given the fact that Mr. Weiner includes countries such as India (ranked 45-46) and Moldova (ranked 93) in his itenirary. Moldova leaves him depressed for weeks following the conclusion of his trip there.
Mr. Weiner's true objective is to define happiness and how to achieve it by visiting a mix of uber happy countries (e.g. Switzerland, Iceland, The Netherlands), middle range happy countries (India, Thailand), and the bottom (Moldova....Molwhat?), and to that end, he offers excellent advice on universal rules of happiness.
Thanks to his credentials as an NPR journalist who has traveled to more than 30 countries to report on human misery and suffering (Iraq and Afghanistan included), Mr. Weiner arranges meetings with key individuals in each country to solicit their opinion on happiness.
Weiner's witty and informative book will appeal to a wide range of audiences including travel enthusiasts, self-help junkies, the philosophical minds, and basically everyone else.
For pictures that serve as an excellent supplement to the chapter on Bhutan, visit Eric Weiner's web site.
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In Search of Happiness -- The Travelogue
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"I just want my children to be happy." How many times have you heard an American parent say that before sighing out of concern for how junior might turn out?
Eric Weiner's family must have shared that vision over him at some point because the self-described grump decided to read all the research about the factors that seem related to self-described happiness . . . and then to traipse all over the world to take a closer look at extreme conditions. Such an assignment would have turned me from a joyful person into a grump. Fortunately, Mr. Weiner tolerated it all pretty well.
I'm a little puzzled by the book's premise: Why doesn't Mr. Weiner just makes notes about when he is and isn't happy and test out spending more time in the former circumstances and less time in the latter to see if his happiness grows or his grumpiness recedes? That's the scientific method of experimentation to test hypothesis.
Asking people how happy they are on a scale of one to ten seems awfully subjective and arbitrary. Cultural norms in some countries might lead people to answer more positively than those in other countries, even if people were experiencing the same amount of happiness.
But if you crave a summary of what factors are more often associated with those who describe themselves as happy, this book is pretty efficient at spelling that out early in the book.
From there, the book turns into an amusing travelogue primarily taking the reader to places you probably haven't visited (Netherlands, Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Moldova, Thailand, and India) and some you probably have (Great Britain and the United States). Mr. Weiner is most imaginative in his choice of locales and his exploration of life style choices (looking into the flesh and drugs of the Netherlands, riding on the clean trains in Switzerland, passing the flesh pots of Thailand, wandering around in the darkness of an Iceland winter, trying to meet a local Arab in Qatar while escaping from luxury and service, checking out the local culture in Qatar and Moldova, living like the locals in Moldova, studying at an Indian ashram, enjoying the beauty of Bhutan, talking to those who were part of a happiness-inducing experiment in Slough (near Heathrow Airport in England), and exploring how some people find locales that fit their personalities better than others).
I didn't learn anything about happiness research that I hadn't read in more detail somewhere else, but I thought that his summary was a fair one.
My main disappointment concerning the book was the lack of exploring a devout Christian community to see how faith adds to happiness in that context.
As a travelogue, it was all great fun . . . but few of the places attracted my interest. I was intrigued, however, by what he had to say about Bhutan. I'll have to add Bhutan to my itinerary for future travels.
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