The Happiest Countries in the World: Where Does America Rank?

Life satisfaction -- 17^th best out of 36

That's not good, not good at all. These countries seem to operate on an entirely different plane that that of America; they seem to march to the beat of an entirely different drummer. For many years the American people have been mentally conditioned to believe that America was the exceptional nation with no peers in the world; that is was the greatest democracy and led the world in almost every important endeavor or achievement. And now we are finding out that this was just a myth, created by various kinds of mind conditioning. This critically important OECD study should be a wake up call for the American people to tell them that it's way past time for this country to move in an entirely new direction.

So in conclusion let's summarize the characteristics of a country with happy people. Why are the people in these countries happy when others are not? What exactly is the difference in how the citizens lead their lives and how their governments function in a supportive role?

Most of these advanced countries place a very high priority on education, believing that it is the key to a strong and stable nation and society; they also place that same kind of priority on making certain that every person has equal health care coverage. They do not initiate needless, unjustifiable wars; they do not spend a large share of their GDP on their militaries and networks of military bases outside their borders.

Yes some of them are involved with NATO and joined the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan but they have played a very minor role, no more than a token gesture toward the world's superpower. We do not see their governments launching drones that attack both suspected enemies as well as innocent civilians alike.

They place a great emphasis on creating jobs because nothing is more important for a person than working and being productive; they are well aware that is the key to maintaining a person's mental well-being. Violence in these countries is not a massive problem because they have found the ways to keep their people relatively safe without allowing a great proliferation of weaponry in their societies.

Perhaps America will one day use some of these exemplary countries as role models when its leaders finally come to the realization that the direction that this country is heading into has become unsustainable.

Michael Payne

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