Is Finland Really The Happiest Country In The World? — Transcript

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1. 0:00it seems faintly ridiculous that Finland
2. 0:02would rate as the happiest place on
3. 0:04earth but for reasons that even
4. 0:06confounded Finn's the United Nations
5. 0:092018 world happiness report ranked the
6. 0:12Nordic nation number one the next list
7. 0:16comes out tomorrow meeting today is
8. 0:19possibly the last day that Finland holds
9. 0:22the title we visited the reigning
10. 0:25champions of joy to see what makes them
11. 0:27so happy are you happy did you see this
12. 0:35story yes I see this many times Santa
13. 0:38I wonder why actually I'm like literally
14. 0:43about to kill myself standing in the
15. 0:45square for like 20 minutes these are
16. 0:47kind of a hard contract especially at
17. 0:49autumn and winter yet so I mean it takes
18. 0:51a lot of yes something in our spirit to
19. 0:55be able to live yeah
20. 0:58[Music]
21. 1:06explain the finished person to man the
22. 1:08finished quality well quite quiet
23. 1:11we are quite serious we like to spend
24. 1:15time alone suicide rates kind of high
25. 1:18here but it's good work every yeah well
26. 1:23and you like living here
27. 1:25well sometimes Koreans sometimes if you
28. 1:29come over here in the summertime
29. 1:30everybody's much more open and beer and
30. 1:33now in the winter time when start
31. 1:36raining sucks
32. 1:38so how do finns battle this demoralizing
33. 1:41weather in a country that's drenched in
34. 1:43darkness half the year well they just
35. 1:46pretend to do happy summer things that's
36. 1:49not warm enough everyone always thinks
37. 1:55about you know that you know the
38. 1:56darkness and how difficult it must be
39. 1:59but when you actually grow up here you
40. 2:01just sort of learn to live with it but
41. 2:03that's rather different than being happy
42. 2:05about it isn't it when I seen the
43. 2:07reviews with the happiest place in the
44. 2:08world is it's quite hard for me to
45. 2:11understand yeah the masses might seem
46. 2:14sullen but Finnish happiness researcher
47. 2:16Frank Martella
48. 2:17thinks the country's top ranking makes a
49. 2:19certain amount of sense they are
50. 2:21measured like life satisfaction and we
51. 2:23know from research like that the factors
52. 2:25like you know like how wealth in the
53. 2:26countries and also like how broad the
54. 2:28social network system is and how much
55. 2:30people's trust in the institution and
56. 2:32what is the situation with the democracy
57. 2:33these factors like unlike Kings have
58. 2:35like came to predict like high life
59. 2:37satisfaction countries that scored high
60. 2:40on income life expectancy and social
61. 2:42support all which contribute to one's
62. 2:44sense of well-being have topped the list
63. 2:46for several years running in other words
64. 2:48if you live in a Nordic welfare state
65. 2:50the UN suspects you're probably happy
66. 2:52one way of like defining measuring
67. 2:54happiness about life satisfaction how
68. 2:56satisfied are you with your life on the
69. 2:58whole and intentional measures Finland
70. 3:00seems to be like in the top but then
71. 3:01when you measure happiness like positive
72. 3:03emotions like joy joyfulness and how
73. 3:05much do you smile every day and so forth
74. 3:06where is Finland on that scale not close
75. 3:10to the top at all at the top of that
76. 3:12scale are cheerful if impoverished
77. 3:14latin-american countries like Paraguay
78. 3:16and Guatemala problem
79. 3:19the word happiness is the like Noah
80. 3:20everybody seems to define it in
81. 3:21different ways as a researcher like I
82. 3:23said that you know we should not get rid
83. 3:25of the word happiness what term would
84. 3:26you prefer is used I would prefer it
85. 3:28like we have like a few separate words
86. 3:30like positive emotions life satisfaction
87. 3:32meaningfulness and like cities and
88. 3:35seasons as three separate things when
89. 3:38you walk on the streets in Finland
90. 3:39people don't seem to be particularly
91. 3:40happy and I was actually thinking that
92. 3:42that might like actually contribute
93. 3:43positively to our sense of satisfaction
94. 3:45because like we know that when we think
95. 3:46about our happiness or when we judge our
96. 3:48own lives we are quite as comparing us
97. 3:50to the other people so if you live among
98. 3:52people where everybody's not advertising
99. 3:54their own happiness like tell in a cage
100. 3:55look at me how happy I am that might
101. 3:57actually make you like more sad
102. 3:59[Music]
103. 4:01so after spending some time in Finland
104. 4:03I've determined that the UN is partially
105. 4:05right this country is not particularly
106. 4:07happy that me was pretty grim but well
107. 4:10they're probably not the happiest people
108. 4:11who look planet I think they're the most
109. 4:12content people in the planet as in
110. 4:14Finland is it's not happy this is the
111. 4:17wrong word it's a bad translation right
112. 4:29you