A delightfully colourful Helsinki (Getty Images/iStockphoto)
We’re grateful for the positive attention, but we Finns (following Brexit, I’m a dual Finn-Brit citizen) think the UN should be monitoring something more nuanced than ‘happiness’, which is by nature a transient quality. Many would prefer ‘contentment’, an acceptance that life can be good within parameters of realistic expectation, in a society where the gap between the rich and the less affluent tends to be narrower than in other countries. We can’t deny that, apart from those long, stubborn winters, Finland has a lot going for it. The northerly location means the long light summer days, in any case, offer compensation for the short dark ones.
There are no earthquakes or volcanoes. Mislay your phone or wallet and there’s an excellent chance that you’ll get it back. Education standards might have slipped from their best-in-the-world status, but they’re still pretty good. We have to pay a charge for most health care, but it’s affordable and once you get to the front of the queue the quality is good. There’s a generally enhanced awareness and appreciation of the environment. Public transport is widespread and generally efficient. A tendency to drink too much has never been deterred significantly by the high price of alcohol, but you get the sense that getting drunk doesn’t figure on the youth ‘cool’ register.
Finns attribute to themselves a certain stoicism, an uncomplaining heads-down determination to deal with what’s in front of them. They have a word for this supposed virtue: sisu. It could be applied to simple tasks, like having to clear the snow off your car after a blizzard, as well as bigger challenges, such as resisting Soviet invasion during the Second World War. It’s a perceived quality that has its roots in the agrarian lifestyle that preceded the feverish urbanisation of recent decades, that has seen the capital Helsinki and other cities expand and develop.
If you only visit the increasingly cosmopolitan and culturally vibrant seaside capital Helsinki on a warm summer day, without venturing to one of the smaller provincial towns with their unemployment and aversion to immigration, you can easily accept that this could well be the happiest place on Earth. The newly elected president, the media-friendly polyglot Alexander Stubb, was quick to pronounce that Finnish happiness rests on three main pillars: nature, trust and education. More accustomed to international attention than they used to be, most Finns chuckle or shrug at the accolade. They’re hard to impress, but they’ll be happy enough if they make it eight in a row this time next year.
Read more: How this Finnish ‘sauna capital of the world’ helped me recover from burnout
Source link : https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/finland/finland-worlds-happiest-country-life-in-uk-b2516490.html
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Publish date : 2024-03-22 07:00:00
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