Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner

Got this book during the close-out sale of Raffles City's MPH for SGD$12. Quite a good buy coz I saw the exact same book going for about SGD$30 at Harris!Definitely over-priced.

This is a fantastic travelogue on Weiner's quest to find a link between where you live and happiness. My idea has always been that city people are always at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to the happiness department. But I guess I may be wrong. I think at the end of the day, it's your own perception and how you fit into a particular place, whether it's a bustling city or quiet suburb, that really matters.

In this witty and funny travelogue, Weiner travelled to Netherlands, Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Moldova, Thailand, Great Britain, India, and America (where the writer is from). What strikes me as interesting is Bhutan, where as the chapter explains, "Happiness is a Policy". Bhutan actually has a policy called Gross National Happiness, as opposed to Gross Domestic Product, which most of us are familiar with. Instead of measuring a country's progress by its economic output, Bhutan measures it by how happy its people are. I think that is a wonderful policy in a world where people often measure their success by how much assets they have, their place on the social ladder, etc.

Another place that left an impression on me was Moldova. Truth be told, I've never heard of the country before reading this book. Moldova, a former Soviet republic, lies between Romania and Ukraine, was listed as one of the unhappiest places on earth, according to a certain researcher (Ruut Veenhoven) quoted in this book. Through what Weiner wrote, this is definitely one place you do not want to visit. Misery seemed to perpetuate the air and even its people agreed that the country is full of unhappy people. Why is that so? I think the chief reason is that it is a dirt-poor country and as the writer, explained, it has no culture of its own. This seems to oppose the National Gross Happiness policy in Bhutan. The Moldovian's income is so low that most cannot afford a meal at McDonald's, which sorta reminds me of Maslow's Hierachy of Needs:

Yes, it's true money cannot guarantee you happiness and happiness cannot be measured by how much you have in your bank. But on the other hand, you cannot be so poor that there is no secure knowledge when and where your next meal is. Poverty coupled with the knowledge of your poverty, seem like a sure-fire way to unhappiness. Yes, there are people in the world who are dirt poor and yet they are happy. But I think that is because they have no access to the outside world, so they do not know just how bad their life is compared to their richer fellow human beings. What you do not know cannot hurt you. Perhaps we can find our bliss in ignorance.