Bliss

The March selection for the library's evening book group was The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner. Click on either link if you want to read about the book, because I couldn't possibly do the book justice by telling you about it here.

It was an excellent read, for which I was very thankful given that I suggested the book to the group. Reading about other countries - some happy, some not - was fascinating but I more enjoyed the concepts that are raised and discussed in the book.

In Bhutan, Weiner met a hotel owner who talks about "knowing your limitations; knowing how much is enough." Given our current economic mess, the "enough" belief really struck a chord with me. Just because you can buy more, should you? When do you have enough? I am just as guilty as the next consumer of buying goods I want but don't need, but as our budget continues to shrink, perhaps I will learn a much-needed lesson about enough.

I was drawn to Iceland and her people because of their attitudes toward failure: it doesn't bother them and they rather admire it. As one person said "We like people who fail if they fail with the best intentions. Maybe they failed because they weren't ruthless enough, for instance." In the U.S. and many other parts of the world, we view failure as, well, failure. And as someone who in many people's opinion has failed to live up to my potential, I like the concept of failure being okay. I certainly am not ruthless enough to climb the business world ladder nor would I ever want to be; sometimes you have to fail at something in order to find something else that you are good at, so how is that bad?

There were several other points in the book that captured my interest but certainly the concept of place playing a factor in happiness was among the strongest. I am not, overall, an unhappy person but I am not as happy now as I have been at other times in my life, and I feel that place has much to do with it. We don't like living where we do now, and we do not like or trust our neighbors, which factors strongly when considering if you like a place. It doesn't mean that Hooter County Georgia is a bad place, it is just not a good place for us.

I do believe that in some regards, happiness is a choice. And I choose to be happier by finding a place that we will like, with people and neighbors that we like and trust. Now if the economy would just cooperate.