Happiness project

Earlier this year Adrian G. White of the University of Leicester attempted to plot happiness on a world map. I couldn’t help download the image and sift over it, comparing countries I’ve lived and countries I’ve visited.

This takes me back a few years to when my wife and I decided to leave London. We were trying to figure out where to live next and to help make the decision we plotted weather patterns, proximity to nice beaches/hiking/snowboarding, scores in the recent ‘quality of life’ surveys and a handful of others things. After all the research we settled on Vancouver – it pretty much has it all – and enjoyed a fantastic year living there.

It was a strange experience doing the analysis. It might have been the first time in my life I really, intently, thought about what makes me happy and what might make me even happier. How often do you think about what makes you happy?

Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for the link to the map.

2 Comments

• 
  cab83 February 20, 2007 at 1:12 am

  I think about happiness constantly, not only about what makes me happy, but about other peoples’ as well.

  I believe in one thing: the most happiness, for the most people, with the least effort. The real effort is in weeding through all the things that seem like happiness at first, but come with hidden costs/work.

  I’ve found the most happiness for me comes through sincere interactions with other people, especially conversations about what constitutes true pleasure/happiness.

  I get to do this once or twice a week at my job, driving a taxi. Now I’m going to school, and I’ve started blogging, so I imagine there will be more and more opportunities.

  I found your blog by adding “happiness” to my tag surfer list.
• 
  kabababrubarta March 26, 2007 at 8:28 pm

  Cool! kabababrubarta