Pastor Tom…

For 12 years a Gallup poll has annually measured how happy people are around the world.¹   This year, Finland remained the happiest place on Earth.  The U.S. dropped from 15^th place to 23^rd.  National happiness, though, is not distributed evenly across age in any country.  

The 2024 Gallup poll was the first time the pollsters assessed happiness by age groups in each country.  The #1 ranking for Finland was based mostly on those 30-60 years old who were happy; below 30 and above 60, not so many smiley faces.  The U.S. on the other hand, was among the top 10 countries in happiness for folks over the age of 60, and a dismal ranking of #62 for those younger than 30.  In Central and Eastern Europe, the reverse is true; young people are happier than the old.

In the U.S., younger people were as happy as older people in 2006-2010, but their life satisfaction declined dramatically since then.  Questions about life satisfaction (quality of life, social interactions, degree of loneliness) had a stronger effect on overall happiness than questions related to satisfaction with income; in other words, being satisfied with life in general is a stronger force for happiness than how much money you make.  Today, young Americans are more dissatisfied with how they are living than they are with their personal income.

What makes Americans happy or sad?  Probably not the winner of the World Series in baseball; winners in 2006-2010 were also victorious since then.  Maybe it is because McDonalds decided in 2011 to make Happy Meals healthier by adding apples and reducing the number of French fries; older folks are more into heart-healthy than the younger generations.

Happy and sad are at the opposite ends of the spectrum of satisfaction, which itself is influenced by many factors.  For instance, people are making a lot more money today than they did 10 years ago, but they are able to buy less.  The pressure to get more education is not as rewarding as it was in the past.  Scars of the COVID-19 isolation have enlarged dependence on the internet and texts as substitutes for social interactions.

I believe finding happiness, at least in America, is closely linked with family values.  The upward trend in broken families is associated with the decline in happiness among young people who have had no exposure to moral values offered through places of worship.  Older people learned moral principles in church or by reading the Bible, and are more likely to be content in most situations because of their faith in God (Philippians 4:12-13).  Younger people, on the other hand, continue to worry about life because they are less likely to place their trust in God (Matthew 6:25, 32).  Instead, they buy into whatever illusion the world is selling.

Don’t get me wrong.  You can’t be either happy or sad all the time.  My happiness meter dips when I get a tax bill or when an aggressive driver cuts me off.  But happiness is restored whenever I remember the Lord is my helper (Hebrews 13:6).  Even grumpy people, who behave like they want to be dissatisfied all the time, get an upward swing in their happiness meter when shown a random act of kindness.  Maybe such acts are the key to pushing everyone’s meter into the happy zone.