Why Happiness is Hard(-er) to Achieve in America

Basic necessities for a happier life learned from the happiest people in the world

After a year of living in Denmark, and subsequently marrying a Dane, I became obsessed with finding out what makes that country the (almost) happiest place on Earth.

Even in the capital city, people went about their business with the seeming ease that to this American was astounding. In Copenhagen, I could almost feel the happiness in the air.

Skeptical at first, I wondered if Danes were brainwashed into believing that they were happy. Maybe they didn’t know what happy meant? Surely, you can’t be happy in such a “boring” place, I thought.

A New Yorker at heart, I was anxious and suspicious by default. I missed the constant stimulation the city provided. Happiness, I thought, was a warm slice of pizza.

With time though, I softened up. When no one around you is angry or scared, you have no choice but to calm down.

Happiness is not (only) an individual effort

I learned that Danish people did, indeed, feel more relaxed and content with their lives, but this seeming happiness wasn’t achieved in individual vacuums. Their society as a whole played a major role in its residents’ well-being.

When a government prioritizes the well-being of its citizens over accumulating wealth and power, individual happiness is much easier to achieve.

Scandinavians wear their high quality of life and satisfaction levels as a badge of honor, and they should. Because when a country measures its success by the happiness levels of its residents, that country has succeeded no matter what.

Sadly, in America, while we talk a great deal about achieving well-being, we’re farther from it now than, perhaps, ever before.

There’s so much noise surrounding the very word “happiness” that one rarely stops to think why we have to work so hard to achieve it in the first place.

Is it because the American society was not built for the pursuit of well-being after all, but for the pursuit of possessions and individualism, which in turn got mistaken for happiness?

From studying and watching Danish people, I’ve come to a few of my own conclusions about what it takes to achieve a healthy and happy society. And why we in the U.S. are not there yet.

Here’s (the first half of) my list.

Having a family should be easy

Having children shouldn’t be a burden. Yet in America, it often is.

What’s more basic than building a family? And what is more important for building a healthy society than building healthy families?

Coming from New York, where having a child was a privilege one had to earn, I was astonished to see how many young and seemingly happy families filled the streets of Copenhagen. That’s because the Danish government is heavily invested in its children.

Visiting Copenhagen University, I observed student moms with strollers hanging out in the cafeteria along with their classmates. Can you imagine strollers in the halls of NYU? Not only it’d be nearly impossible to combine child-rearing and studying in a major U.S. city, but it would also be seen as very “uncool.”

Yet there’s nothing uncool about having kids early in Copenhagen. And people there can easily afford more than one child, which many New Yorkers find challenging.

Education is free in Denmark, and students get paid to go to university. They get paid even more if they have children. Maternity leave is generous. Quality childcare is abundant and subsidized by the government. Work hours are shorter, and it’s always okay to leave early to pick up your kid or attend to a family emergency. From what I gathered, putting work ahead of family, or expecting your employees to do so, is almost unheard of in Denmark.

In regards to raising children, the U.S. is almost the opposite of Denmark.

Parental needs are barely acknowledged by the American government.

Parental challenges are turned into TV sitcoms.

We’re told that having children is bad for the environment.

We’re encouraged to wait until we get older, so we can “afford” to have a child.

And when we wait too long, we’re encouraged to spend our life savings on fertility treatments.

We have a love-hate relationship with the very idea of starting a family.

Where do we go from here?

People should trust their government

Danes, like all Scandinavians, believe that their government will do what’s best for them. Because it does.

Having free healthcare and education, generous welfare and parental support, as well as an overall emphasis on quality of life, are all the things Danes take for granted, yet they are aware that it’s their government that makes them possible. They don’t mind paying high taxes because they believe that the money will be spent wisely.

A healthy relationship with your government — what a basic yet powerful thing to achieve.

In America, on the other hand, many, if not most, people don’t trust the authorities and have no basis for doing so. We don’t trust the rules set by the government either. Or each other. Rules are “for suckers.” If you’re not first, you’re last. What a sad state of things.

Trusting your government means feeling protected by your government.

It means not having to go through life in a defensive mode. And what can be more comforting than that?

People should trust the rules and one another

Danish people are adorable. They’re friendly, smiley, polite, and always happy to speak English. But after a year of living in Denmark, it’s their one behavior quirk that I found especially charming: their notorious dedication to following the rules.

For better or worse, whether it’s crossing the road, biking, or queuing up at the supermarket, rest assured, Danes will follow the spoken and unspoken rules the government and society have imposed on them.

As a New Yorker, I scoffed at such predictability at first, but, with time, I began to wonder if this blind devotion to order had something to do with the country’s reputation of being one of the happiest on Earth.

Back home in New York, having to beat the system to get ahead is a part of the daily survival mechanism. We call it the “hustle” and hustle we do best. New York, and America in general, is chaos. There’s so much tension in the city, and the rest of the country, that relaxing isn’t an option.

Denmark, on the other hand, is ordered. Instead of the “every man for himself” outlook, Danes have historically adopted the “we’re all in this together mentality.” But for that to work, there have to be rules and expectations in place.

After all, it’s a way of communicating trust within the society and a way of saying “I got your back.”

I’ll always signal when I turn left on my bike, so you never have to worry about the safety of your commute. Likewise, I know that you will always stop at a red light, so I never have to worry about my own safety crossing the road.

When this system works, it takes a lot of little stresses out of daily life, which in turn adds up to a happier life in general.

Unfortunately, there’s so much mistrust in American society that following the rules hardly seems like a reasonable thing to do. So we continue to live with our every-man-for-himself mentality.

Sadly, instead of turning to our fellow countrymen for support, many Americans chose to isolate themselves to find happiness.

Contentment certainly can be achieved in any place, but in some societies, we just have to try harder.

This piece is the first half of a two-part essay.