Happy? Why The Hell Not?

"If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife." Note the quotation marks...that means I didn't say that (in case word should get back, y'know?). It's actually part of a lyric from a rock and roll song "back in the day" when rock and roll was actually NOT drowning in teen angst and hedonistic pleasures. Well, OK, rock music has always been about those things, but I didn't understand it at the time Jimmy Soul was singing the aforementioned (I love using that word) song. (I also love using parentheses).
Barnes and Noble and every other book purveyor in this country is awash with self-help books about attaining happiness. Professionals make gajillions of dollars treating "unhappy" people, and movies like "Dumb and Dumber" go boffo at the box office. What the hell is wrong with us? We try to medicate in order to achieve happiness; we attempt to work ourselves tirelessly so we can avoid the problem; we flit from one interpersonal relationship to another seeking fulfillment, and we find ourselves basically dissatisfied. Some say exercise is the cure; some say comfort food like Ho Ho's and Ding Dongs are the path; some even use religion as a conduit. Drugs, loud music, fast cars, loose women (or men, but that's a given)have all been applied as balm to a tortured psyche, but here we are: still seeking.
Why am I thinking about this and requiring you to do the same? I just finished a book named "The Geography of Bliss," and there are some thoughts worth sharing. Irony? There's plenty, but what would you expect when the self-proclaimed grump author's name rhymes with "whiner."
Said author was a reporter for National Public Radio for years and traveled some of the most depressing roads of the world...when given the opportunity, he wanted to find out if there were any specific places in the world that were more happy than others, hence the title. Surprisingly, there was a vast amount of research already done so his search did not exactly start at the beginning. In fact, it started in Amsterdam, home of legal drugs, prostitution and every other hedonistic pleasure imaginable.
Now that I've titillated you curiosity, I won't be sharing any of his findings of a specific nature like "where, dammit!" I will share some things I found enlightening...some of which I had already surmised, but others not so much.

1. The United States is not the happiest place on earth. In fact, I think it ranked behind even Costa Rica on the final scale (23rd).

2. A LOT of money is not any kind of guarantee of happiness; in fact, it has been shown in entire countries to lead to unhappiness! (think "Quatar")

3. Poverty is no decided determiner of sadness; in fact, the poorest people in Calcutta, noted armpit of the world as far as slums are concerned, were found to be happier than the poorest people in parts of California. This was due mostly, I suspect, to the level of expectation of each group. Indians can always have it better in any of the next hundred lives while Californians might well have just one shot at it.

4. Sunshine and blue skies are not great determiners of happiness, either; while the vote isn't in from those in the Pacific Northwest, it IS in from Iceland, and you'd be surprised.

5. There are some entire countries in which happiness is simply a myth, a picture postcard from around the world. Imagine what those folks do for a vacation! Where would you go?

Weiner even goes so far as to posit, as did Judy Garland, "There's no place like home" though I'm not sure he meant it. No philospher, he, but he did interview some interesting people all over the world in order to come to his conclusions, the most important of which (to me) seemed to be, "Don't ever, under any circumstances, go to Moldova."
One of his favorite questions was to ask people to rank their happiness on a scale of 1-10. Me? I vary from day to day and remember that every day I'm not looking up at dirt has the chance to be a wonderful day...it's all up to me.
As for the song lyrics in the beginning? If anyone asks, I'm miserable.