Lessons from the happiest place in the world (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Mona Chalabi:
So Saleem, something that I have definitely realized as I’ve gotten older is this idea that you actually don’t really know what’s going on with someone else, right? You seem like a pretty happy person, but what do I know?

[00:00:19] Saleem Reshamwala:
I don’t know if I’m happy. I have to step back and think about it.

[00:00:23] Mona Chalabi:
Yeah, you gotta check in with yourself sometimes. Right?

[00:00:25] Saleem Reshamwala:
I’m not unhappy. I’m happy in this moment, having this conversation.

[00:00:28] Mona Chalabi:
Yeah.

[00:00:28] Saleem Reshamwala:
I don’t know what that does or doesn’t say about me in general, but I can comment on the moment.

[00:00:34] Mona Chalabi:
Well, even though you and I aren’t sure if we’re happy, there are researchers who are determined to measure how happy people are. So every year as part of an initiative for the United Nations, a group of researchers release something called a World Happiness Report that ranks countries according to their happiness.

[00:00:52] Saleem Reshamwala:
Yeah, I'm so interested to know how they went about measuring happiness, though. For me, there's so much that goes into what that word even means. How would you even start something like that?

[00:01:02] Mona Chalabi:
So, the researchers looked at things like gross domestic products per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, corruption. And they also asked the participants to do some self-evaluation too.

[00:01:16] Saleem Reshamwala:
It’s hard for me to understand whether that’s measuring conditions to give someone a good shot at being happy or their actual happiness.

[00:01:26] Mona Chalabi:
Yeah.

[00:01:27] Saleem Reshamwala:
What do you think’s happening there?

[00:01:29] Mona Chalabi:
Well, I think it’s probably a little bit of both, right? Like, those two things can feed into one another. So if you have a higher life expectancy, that might be an indication of, like, a robust system of healthcare, and I assume, would contribute to your happiness. And the mere fact of being happy would also extend your life expectancy, right? So I think it’s actually really hard to separate out those two things. I mean, we know that research questions can be based on assumptions.

[00:01:57] Saleem Reshamwala:
I know it’s not a contest-contest, but could I ask who’s winning recently?

[00:02:03] Mona Chalabi:
The Finns are winning! The report found that Finland has been the happiest country for the past five years.

[00:02:09] Saleem Reshamwala:
Hearing that and not knowing too much about Finland, I get this absurd vision in my head of smiling people walking around in sunshine all day. It can’t all be like that.

[00:02:23] Mona Chalabi:
I don't know. I mean, why don't you just try talking to somebody who has lived in the happiest country in the world and find out what they think? Maybe it'll help us figure out what happiness really means and whether you can even really measure it. Or whether you should measure it!

[00:02:39] Saleem Reshamwala:
The mission sounds great. Let’s keep the activity going.

[00:02:48] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
I’m Saleem Reshamwala, and from the TED Audio Collective, this is a special season of Am I Normal?

[BREAK]

[00:03:00] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
Around 2012, Ilona Suojanen had been working in education in Finland... And something was off.

[00:03:09] Ilona Suojanen:
I was very unhappy at work. The clear moment when I realized that I was unhappy at work, I was watching Friends, and I laughed. And then I said to my partner, “That was the first time I laughed this week.”

And he said, “What? Don't you laugh, uh, at work every day?” And I said, “No, do you?” He said, “Yeah, of course.” I think that was really the moment I realized that something is badly wrong. Yeah. So I started really asking myself: do I want to be happy? Um, should I be happy at work? And who's responsible for my happiness?

[00:03:45] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
Eventually, Ilona ended up making a whole career out of studying happiness.

[00:03:51] Ilona Suojanen:
I'm a happyologist. Uh, my name is Ilona. And the first three letters: I-L-O means “joy.” So I guess, I didn't have a choice. I was doomed into this happiness business maybe.

[00:04:06] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
First things first–what did this Finnish happyologist think about the World Happiness Report and about Finland being named the happiest country?

[00:04:14] Ilona Suojanen:
I think calling a country a happy country is a bit funny.
[00:04:19] Saleem Reshamwala:
It is, it is!

[00:04:20] Ilona Suojanen:
Uh-huh. Because then the happiness is… I mean it can be objective as well, but I think it’s more, more of this subjective, um, experience and, and these, uh, uh, studies five in a row, we would talk about the, you know, the happy Finns, not happy Finland.

Um, it's good research, but I do have some, uh, questions and, and hesitations about it. One of the most important aspect is that when they do the survey, so they actually ask about satisfaction, not about happiness.

[00:04:50] Saleem Reshamwala:
Oh, interesting. Have you had times in your life, when you feel very satisfied, but not happy?
[00:04:55] Ilona Suojanen:
I think I can look back and be satisfied, like oh, you know, um, how I have these great people in my life and how I've had great experiences. But nevertheless, I'm feeling unhappy. And sometimes I can say why am I unhappy, or sometimes I don't fully know why. And I think that can be really tricky as well. I think people can be very satisfied with their lives or somewhat satisfied with their lives. But then at the same time doesn’t mean that they are very, very happy. That's another question. I think satisfaction is more, uh, more about judgment, um about life or how life is.

So yeah, I just think it's just a part of, part of happiness, and there are other aspects as well. And in that way, I do think that it makes sense that Finnish people have responded that way because life in Finland is really good.

[00:05:44] Saleem Reshamwala:
Well, what role does culture play in happiness?

[00:05:48] Ilona Suojanen:
Yeah, I think this is very, very important to discuss when we talk about these happiness rankings and then we look at the top 10, and they're all these Western countries, and what if we had different kind of questions? What if we had different kind of measurements that weren't necessarily uh, so Western-based? Would we get really different-looking, uh, list of the countries on top?

I always remember this happiness conference I went to. And there was a Japanese, uh, happiness researcher. And he said that this question, “How happy are you?” is completely wrong. We should ask, “How happy are people around you?”

[00:06:23] Saleem Reshamwala:
Oh, interesting

[00:06:24] Ilona Suojanen:
Because that's how it is in these societies when it's about the collectives.

[00:06:29] Saleem Reshamwala:
Yeah.

[00:06:29] Ilona Suojanen:
If we think of this way that we value happiness differently, wouldn't that also have impact on what we answer when people ask us “How satisfied or how happy are you with your life?”

And many of the, happiness research, happiness theories, they are based in western research and they are written by, uh, western researchers and no matter how good they are, I think there is this bias.

[00:06:56] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
So culture shapes how we think about happiness, but it seems like systemic factors also play a role in whether or not we can attain happiness. For most of us, there's a limit to how much we can control factors that make us happy or not happy.

[00:07:14] Ilona Suojanen:
Of course, it's a shared responsibility. But it's also the responsibility of others, for example, in the workplace to treat me nicely, just like I have responsibility for others. And then the organizations, and the, you know the governments, it's really their responsibility to kind of provide this base, where it's possible for people to live happy lives.

[00:07:38] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
Which gets back to the happiness report. Your happiness is probably affected by where you live, at least a little bit.

[00:07:48] Saleem Reshamwala:
You’ve lived in a lot of countries outside of Finland and You recently moved from the Netherlands to the UK. How has the country you lived in affected your happiness?

[00:08:00] Ilona Suojanen:
I've been reading about migration and happiness, and I remember reading that when we move from less developed country to more developed country, our happiness increases.

[00:08:10] Saleem Reshamawala:
Huh.

[00:08:11] Ilona Suojanen:
And when we move from more developed country to less developed country, our happiness, uh, might decrease. And, uh, yes, life in the Netherlands is very, very high quality.

There are all these different aspects that had impact on it, but I had a really, really, really nice life in, in the Netherlands.

[00:08:29] Saleem Reshamwala:
Yeah.

[00:08:29] Ilona Suojanen:
So maybe partly it was also letting go, mourning. So yes, living in the Netherlands, I didn't see poverty. And then I went to UK and I see homeless people, people who I, you know, on so many levels, they are not doing well.

They aren't healthy. I've heard so many times, uh, parents screaming for their kids, which I didn't see in the Netherlands. I see so much rubbish on the streets. I see so many dark streets where there's no street lights. And I think it's important as a happyologist to be reminded how well things are in Finland or how well things are in the Netherlands and actually see how in many other countries, things aren't so well and how normal people are suffering as a result of wrong decisions being made.

And I think in England, it's just really hit my face. I saw all this suffering that I hadn’t, hadn’t seen for a while or hadn't seen in that way. And I think that had a big impact on my happiness. Then of course, I mean, different areas in the UK are also different.

Like it depends on, on where you are there. Happiness is such a broad and such a complex thing. And it, so many different things in our lives have influence on it. Our genes, you know, the environment, what kind of cards we got in life. That is, it's really cruel to say to individuals that “It’s your own responsibility, and if you're not happy, you haven't worked hard enough or you failed,” that’s something that we really need to start changing as well. I want to live in a world where we all say, “Hey, I am responsible for my happiness, but so are you. And so is the society where I live in.”

[00:10:16] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
I love the idea that happiness is a shared responsibility. And like Ilona mentioned. If we live in a culture where happiness is treated as just a personal pursuit, not feeling happy could then feel like a personal failure, rather than a indicator of some systemic problems. And a society that makes sure its people's needs are met can set up the conditions for happiness. I keep thinking about what Mona and I talked about how we figure out personally whether or not we're happy.

[00:10:52] Saleem Reshamwala:
Okay, you don't fully agree with how those researchers measured happiness. So, how do you measure happiness in your research?

[00:11:00] Ilona Suojanen:
I'm a qualitative researcher. So I don't measure. I try to understand.

[00:11:05] Saleem Reshamwala:
Yeah.

[00:11:05] Ilona Suojanen:
So what I did in my, my PhD study, I didn't define happiness. I actually really wanted to understand how other people define it. So I told them that they are the experts of their own happiness and whatever way they define their happiness, that's fine with me.

[00:11:21] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
She asked participants to take a picture whenever they experienced momentary happiness during their workday. A happy moment is just that: an instant of goodness.

[00:11:33] Ilona Suojanen:
For example, having lunch outside or having a nice, uh, walk to work when they came up with, uh, new ideas for work. There were moments when they realized how much they had impact on their own work.

[00:11:47] Saleem Reshamwala:
Yeah.

[00:11:47] Ilona Suojanen:
Or how much freedom they had.

[00:11:50] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
One topic that kept coming up: other people.

[00:11:54] Ilona Suojanen:
Whether it was a colleague, they had a good chat or nice lunch together, or they achieved something together, a student or a customer they helped. Because I know that for me, other people are very important source for happiness.

[00:12:08] Saleem Reshamwala:
Yeah.

[00:12:08] Ilona Suojanen:
And I know from all this research I've read that that's one of the kind of clearest happiness boosters or happiness indicators that, you know, the good relationships and other people in our lives. That's like a really, really important, uh, part of our happiness.

[00:12:25] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
Okay, so that gets us back to that Japanese researcher was indicating: other people are involved in your happiness and can be a major part of you being happy. And there's other things too.

[00:12:36] Ilona Suojanen:
They did talk about authenticity.

[00:12:39] Saleem Reshamwala:
Oh, interesting.

[00:12:40] Ilona Suojanen:
Where they felt that they were fully themselves and they were seen by others as themselves. That's one of the important aspects of happiness, that it needs to be authentic, otherwise it is not really happiness. Then they also talked about happiness as a mood. That was a bit harder. So it was something that was kind of more longer lasting. It was sometimes quite hard to actually pinpoint what caused it.

[00:13:05] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
A happy mood can come from having a really good streak at work for a period of time. Maybe you do really well on a project, and maybe that gets you love from your coworkers and recognition. A few months later, it all leads to a promotion and a raise. You're on a roll!

[00:13:20] Ilona Suojanen:
But these are the three things that I kind of include into my, um, definition of happiness. Happy moments, happiness as a mood, and a happy life.

[00:13:31] Saleem Reshamwala:
Huh, a happy life. I've always wondered how much work plays into that. Does it matter how meaningful our work is to us?

[00:13:40] Ilona Suojanen:
That was one aspect that also came up, uh, in my research that I think sometimes we just, even if our work is meaningful, we don't see it, we don't value it, for most of the jobs in the world can be meaningful in a way or another.
But then sometimes I'm also a bit concerned that, okay, if happiness is now the sign of success, I don't want us to turn meaning or meaningfulness into one of those goals as well, that, you know, then we're all competing who is more meaningful—

[00:14:12] Saleem Reshamwala:
Oh, interesting.

[00:14:12] Ilona Suojanan:
In whose work or life is more meaningful than others. So we should be careful with that as well.

[00:14:18] Saleem Reshamwala:
I, I wonder about that a lot, actually. If there's times when I get focused on happiness and maybe comfort, and that pulls me away from doing something hard and good, and then other times I wonder if pursuing happiness itself can make me less satisfied. Like, if focusing too much on whether or not I'm happy makes me question things that kind of don't need to be questioned for me to feel happy.

[00:14:43] Ilona Suojanen:
You're not the only one thinking that way, for sure. There are other, um, researchers and philosophers who think the same way, that maybe the goal in life is, maybe we shouldn't just focus on getting happier. Maybe other things could be like, how could I have a meaningful life? That kind of refers to not just happy and comfort, but all the other aspects of life that also make our life feel meaningful, give purpose to our life, can be hard and, and we learn from them.
And those in the end make us happy.

[00:15:16] Saleem Reshamwala:
Yeah.

[00:15:16] Ilonana Suojanen:
But not when we try to achieve it, because we think of “If I do this, then I will be happy in future,” but then we're never happy in future. We can only be happy right now.

[00:15:27] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
I love that shift from wondering what makes us happy to what gives us meaning. And of course, it made me wonder about my own happiness. More on that after the break.

[BREAK]
[00:15:53] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
With all this new learning about happiness, I kind of wanted to evaluate my own. So, I did Ilona's photo exercise.

[00:16:02] Saleem Reshamwala:
I went through your activity of trying to look for happy pictures during my day. Could I share those pictures with you?

[00:16:12] Ilona Suojanen:
Yes, please.

[00:16:14] Saleem Reshamwala:
And let me know if that, that link works for you.

[00:16:17] Ilona Suojanen:
Happy collection.

[00:16:19] Saleem Reshamwala:
There you go.

[00:16:20] Ilona Suojanen:
I don't want to interpret them. I want you to tell me what's happening there.

[00:16:23] Saleem Reshamwala:
Okay, so I'll tell you what's happening in these photos. So during the day, I'm bouncing back and forth between work and home life, right? Because I'm basically within a hundred feet of my house the entire day. So, the first photo you're seeing is a gigantic flower that's in my backyard.

But most mornings when I walk out, I see a hummingbird come to that flower. And it always chills me out. It's very much like when a Disney princess walks out, and, like, birds surround her. Like, that's what I see often early in the day.

[00:17:00] Ilona Suojanen:
Yes, you know, we, we have so much beauty in, in our lives if we, you know, have time to stop and see it.

[00:17:08] Saleem Reshamwala:
The other picture is my friend, John La, who we collaborate on projects all the time. And he came over for a, a meeting and he's on the back porch. The kids are there. They're watching a video that the kids did. We were really there to watch a video that me and John La had worked on together. But this friend of mine is on the porch.

The porch has become this place where so many good parts of my life come together. We'll come and hang out on the porch. We'll work on the porch. These are all, like, kind of adjustments, really, that started during the pandemic of like not leaving the house very much. And then the last picture is a little tiny drum kit that's next to my work desk, and I can kind of just turn and drum a little.
I'm a beginning drummer so it's like, you know, not super talented but, but I entertain myself. So, those are the things I snapped.

[00:18:00] Ilona Suojanen:
Oh, wow. These are really amazing pictures and I love the stories you shared with me. Seeing this, it really makes me happy. You as a person, you have so many different aspects of you and so many different roles and identities, you know, and yeah, it's great that you've been able to create them. And they're really great pictures. Thank you for sharing.

[00:18:22] Saleem Reshamwala:
And I was surprised at how personal the photos are and how you're now the only person outside of my family that would know that these are the things, like, I haven't talked about all these things with some of my closest friends even as the things that, that made me happy during the day.

[00:18:36] Ilona Suojanen:
Yeah.

[00:18:37] Saleem Reshamwala:
When you see a group of photos like this, like, a part of my brain is like, “Oh, did I pass the happy test? Am I happy?” Like, it's weird that my brain is doing that.

[00:18:45] Ilona Suojanen:
We are not the first one who is asking, and I don't walk around thinking, “Oh, that's a happy person. Oh, that's a very unhappy person.” There's no way I'm a, I'm a person to judge anyone else's happiness. But what I see, I'm very glad that you have these aspects in your life that bring you happiness.

[00:19:02] Saleem Reshamwala:
So I attempted to write a very quick quiz. Can I give you my five question quiz of happiness?

[00:19:13] Ilona Suojanen:
Okay.

[00:19:14] Saleem Reshamwala:
Have you seen a bird or a fish today?
[00:19:17] Ilona Suojanen:
Um, not yet a living one, but I went to an art gallery and there was a beautiful exhibitions about gardens.

[00:19:23] Saleem Reshamwala:
Ooh.

[00:19:24] Ilona Suojanen:
And there was a bird.

[00:19:25] Saleem Reshamwala:
Oh, I love that answer. I'll take that. Did you make someone laugh or did someone make you laugh?

[00:19:32] Ilona Suojanen:
Yes, my husband. I think it went both ways.

[00:19:36] Saleem Reshamwala:
Did you move your body around?

[00:19:40] Ilona Suojanen:
Yes, I did walk.

[00:19:41] Saleem Reshamwala:
Did you get out of your house? That kind of answers that.

[00:19:45] Ilona Suojanen:
Yes, I was walking by the sea.

[00:19:47] Saleem Reshamwala:
Um, did you make yourself something nice to eat or drink today?

[00:19:52] Ilona Suojanen:
Yeah, I didn't make it, but I bought my favorite chocolate mousse. Yeah.

[00:19:56] Saleem Reshamwala:
Well, thank you so much.

[00:19:59] Ilona Suojanen:
Yeah, and I really loved your questions. I think you know quite a lot about happiness, already being able to ask those questions.

[00:20:06] Saleem Reshamwala:
Thank you.

[00:20:07] Ilona Suojanen:
And if they have to say no to all of them, maybe it's time to think what could they add or what they could change in their lives to increase their happiness a bit. And I'm so glad I, I was able to answer yes to most of them.

[00:20:20] Saleem Reshamwala:
Oh! For—basically a five out of five. I mean, you didn't make the mousse, but the fact that you ate a chocolate mousse, that’s, that gets you a five out of five. You're going to get credit.

[00:20:29] Ilona Suojanen:
And I have to tell you that if you're lactose intolerant, come to Finland. This is a heaven. Everything is lactose free.

[00:20:36] Saleem Reshamwala:
You just told me something that makes me confident that I would be incredibly happy in what's measured as the happiest country in the world.

[00:20:49] Saleem Reshamwala (VO):
It was interesting. I went into that conversation with Ilona a little afraid that measuring happiness might make me self conscious. That it could even get in the way of my happiness. But, taking some pictures of things that made me happy, actually made me feel a bit happier. It reminded me of how much I liked them.

But, I'm not totally sure how to measure other people's happiness. I'll keep thinking on it. And I'd love to hear how you'd measure your happiness. What would be in your happiness photos for the day? Hit me with the questions from your personal happiness quiz. It might even make you a little happy to do it.
And I'll post my little happiness quiz and photos on my Instagram. I'm at @kidethnic, K I D E T H N I C. Say hey, and talk soon.

Am I Normal is part of the TED Audio Collective. This special season is hosted by me, Saleem Reshamwala.

This episode was produced by JoAnn DeLuna, and edited by Sara Nics.

Our team includes Daphne Chen, Constanza Gallardo, Michelle Quint, Banban Cheng, Roxanne Hai Lash, and Jimmy Gutierrez.

Jennifer Nam is our researcher and fact checker.

Original theme song by Sasami. Sarah Bruguiere is our mix engineer.

And thank you so much to Mona Chalice for bringing me along on this data scavenger hunt.