Image via WikipediaDan Chalcraft
Posted 10 hours ago
Just think for a minute: What makes you happy? Well, for many people the word "happy" begins with a sufficient amount of money to enjoy life and be comfortable such as to have the ability to do what you want and buy what you want.
These material items could include a nice home, cars, clothes, participating in leisure activities along with food to eat. However, being happy in life is much more than having money and materialist objects. Furthermore, it means being healthy, being free from pain or injury, being self sufficient and enjoying time with family and friends. In addition, being happy is based on being able to speak what's on your mind without fear, to worship the God of your choosing and to feel safe and secure in your own home. Happiness means having opportunity to get an education and to be an entrepreneur.
Now, that I've explained happines , researchers at the Legatum Institute, a London-based non-partisan think-tank set out five years ago to rank the happiest countries in the world. They referred to it as the 2010 Prosperity Index since 'happy' carries a more softer connotation to it. It ranks 110 countries and covers 90 per cent of the world's population.
To properly categorize each county, the London-based think tank gathered upwards of a dozen international surveys completed by groups such as the Gallup polling group, the Heritage Foundation, and the World Economic Forum. Each country is ranked on 89 variables sorted into eight subsections: economy, entrepreneurship, governance, education, health, safety, personal freedom and social capital.
Canada is often the place where people want to be so they can be in a place where they are accepted for who they are and can contribute to be a productive members of sociey. Canadians are known as happy people; an example of that pride, joy and happiness could be seen at the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia in February and March of 2010. According to the Index, Canada was ranked as the seventh happiest country in the world due to it's place as a country where personal freedom is plentiful, and immigrants are welcomed. Corruption is very low, and social capital is high with Canadians eager to help others and donate to charity.
Seventy-five per cent of people believe their city is a good place to start a business which provides opportunity and entreneurship. It indicates that business startup costs are inexpensive, technology is thriving with there being a lot of cell-phones and plenty of secure Internet servers and a pre conceived notion that working hard gets you ahead. Norway was ranked as the most prosperous county due to having the world's highest per capita gross domestic product. Norwegians have the second highest level of satisfaction with their standards of living at 95 per cent. Norwegians say that they are satisfied with the freedom to choose the direction of their lives. Being a small country helps as they don't face the same challenges of big countries like having so many disparate groups such as ethnic, geographic, and civic battling against each other.
