As I was sitting in the British Consulate in Kiev for 7 hours today it gave me the chance to finish the book I was reading, The Geography of Bliss. This was written by a US journalist who decided to find the happiest countries in the world and find out what made them happy.
Half way through his research he decided to to go to the unhappiest country on Earth... Moldova (my last stop!).
Today I was down to the last three chapters, Thailand, India and the US. Basically happiness in those places seems to come down to the following things:
1) Thailand: Don't think about things too much as thinking about happy or unhappy things makes you unhappy.
Research indeed shows that people who are asked to comment on how happy a piece of music makes them feel register lower levels of happiness afterwards than people who just listen to music and thn are asked how happy it made them.
2) India: You can hold two contradictory truths at once. You can be unhappy and happy.
Essentially this is because their brand of reincarnation means that whatever your level of happiness in this life isn't your fault... It is karma from a previous existence. Therefore good or bad you have to take life as a theatre and play your role with good grace.
3) The US: Where people who more than any other nation on Earth equate money and happiness prove time and time again in research studies that the two are not linked once your income tops 15000 dollars a year.
Instead, home, family, quality human contact and making altruistic contributions to the lives of others shines through as the foundation of American happiness. Envy in several forms however takes the shine off the US overall score and means it does worse in international happiness surveys than you might think... It is only averagely happy.
Today I got through the awfulness by playing the role of someone who has had their passport and wallet stolen* and who has to spend the day at their Consulate sorting it out. But someone who won't think about it too much afterwards while reflecting that thanks to the love and care of those closest to me, I will happilly be on my way home tomorrow, and my total lack of any money in this moment is not something to worry about.
*The news here is that on arriving in Kiev from Odessa, I got the Metro from the station to my hostel. Big mistake. My wallet was stolen from my pocket when the train braked and I braced myself from knocking someone over instead of keeping my pocket covered and knocking someone down. My passport document wallet including my spare Euros and Sterling was also stolen from a zipped pocket inside my zipped bag... and I will never know how that was done ever! Though it was probably done at the same time by the same people.
The good news is that everyone at the hostel and the Consulate was lovely and I will get to go home as soon as my emergency passport is made tomorrow... either in time for the 4pm flight or for Thursday's.
The bad news... Lot's of guys in Kiev see this as their only way of 'earning' a living and the three police stations I went to to report this all threw me out with varying degrees of disinterest, 'not my problem' or 'I can't speak English, you can't speak Ukrainian now get out of my face' hostility.
Thanks to my reading today of Thai and Indian approaches to happiness, I'm not going to think about it much any more and I will now go and play the role of a tourist in search of a pizza and a beer.
Half way through his research he decided to to go to the unhappiest country on Earth... Moldova (my last stop!).
Today I was down to the last three chapters, Thailand, India and the US. Basically happiness in those places seems to come down to the following things:
1) Thailand: Don't think about things too much as thinking about happy or unhappy things makes you unhappy.
Research indeed shows that people who are asked to comment on how happy a piece of music makes them feel register lower levels of happiness afterwards than people who just listen to music and thn are asked how happy it made them.
2) India: You can hold two contradictory truths at once. You can be unhappy and happy.
Essentially this is because their brand of reincarnation means that whatever your level of happiness in this life isn't your fault... It is karma from a previous existence. Therefore good or bad you have to take life as a theatre and play your role with good grace.
3) The US: Where people who more than any other nation on Earth equate money and happiness prove time and time again in research studies that the two are not linked once your income tops 15000 dollars a year.
Instead, home, family, quality human contact and making altruistic contributions to the lives of others shines through as the foundation of American happiness. Envy in several forms however takes the shine off the US overall score and means it does worse in international happiness surveys than you might think... It is only averagely happy.
Today I got through the awfulness by playing the role of someone who has had their passport and wallet stolen* and who has to spend the day at their Consulate sorting it out. But someone who won't think about it too much afterwards while reflecting that thanks to the love and care of those closest to me, I will happilly be on my way home tomorrow, and my total lack of any money in this moment is not something to worry about.
*The news here is that on arriving in Kiev from Odessa, I got the Metro from the station to my hostel. Big mistake. My wallet was stolen from my pocket when the train braked and I braced myself from knocking someone over instead of keeping my pocket covered and knocking someone down. My passport document wallet including my spare Euros and Sterling was also stolen from a zipped pocket inside my zipped bag... and I will never know how that was done ever! Though it was probably done at the same time by the same people.
The good news is that everyone at the hostel and the Consulate was lovely and I will get to go home as soon as my emergency passport is made tomorrow... either in time for the 4pm flight or for Thursday's.
The bad news... Lot's of guys in Kiev see this as their only way of 'earning' a living and the three police stations I went to to report this all threw me out with varying degrees of disinterest, 'not my problem' or 'I can't speak English, you can't speak Ukrainian now get out of my face' hostility.
Thanks to my reading today of Thai and Indian approaches to happiness, I'm not going to think about it much any more and I will now go and play the role of a tourist in search of a pizza and a beer.
Comments
Post a Comment