Happiness is OK for Finland. For us, Stress not Saunas.

By Fred Bruning

May 11, 2025

As though dropped from a spaceship bound for some less conflicted planet, the Happiness Issue of The New York Times Magazine landed last week in our driveway.

(“Happiness Issue?” roars the captain. “They been reading the paper? Full speed ahead. We’re outta’ here.”)

From the Table of Contents:

· Satisfaction Studies: There’s a formula for happiness – but you won’t find it alone.

· The Thrill List: Tips from the experts on finding bliss.

· Finnish Me: My depressing week in “the happiest country on Earth.”

· Glee Club: Too many teens are struggling. But what brings them delight?

· Up Through the Ages: Our idea of happiness has become shallow. Let’s go deep.

That story – go deep! – refers to ancient thought on the matter, including the happiness views of Cicero, Aristotle and Seneca and, then hurtling centuries forward, Thomas Jefferson, British philosopher John Stuart Mill, and, finally, Oprah Winfrey.

Some of this was heavy stuff but the general idea, I think, is that the path to happiness is not merely personal welfare but “civic virtue” and a healthy relationship between the individual and community.

“We just need to move beyond that small, sealed-off model of happiness – so that happiness can root itself in connection, responsibility and care,” says Kwame Anthony Appiah, the Times Magazine ethics columnist.

But wait. Any chance happiness has been hit with grade inflation? What do we expect, anyway?

Happiness is overrated,” said National Geographic magazine recently. “Try flourishing, instead.”

Perhaps a younger, less encumbered, generation can provide guidance.

Teenagers – often frazzled by social media, school violence, climate change and the effects of covid – told the Times writer Charley Locke they found “delight” in modest measure, psychological small plates, you might say.

An 18-year-old watches jellyfish videos because the creatures have no brains or bones but, “no matter what happens in the world” are “still able to live through it and keep going.”

A kid in Jackson, Mississippi, falls asleep on the phone with her best friend. Someone else likes to draw blueprints and maps. In Baltimore, a 17-year-old listens to gospel music.

A boy wakes up at 2 a.m. to watch Australian women’s soccer. His dad joins him. They root for the “Matildas,” named for, “Waltzing Matilda,” the inspired tune celebrating Australian pluck and perseverance. Terrific.

House favorite: 17-year-old Reem Khalifa, of Queens, who, faced with a difficult task, talks out loud to a rubber duck. “When I run into problems, I turn to the duck…” says Reem.

Who of a certain age would not cheer for Reem and perhaps recall Groucho Marx and the simple pleasures of “You Bet Your Life?” the 50s TV show where, if a contestant uttered the “secret word,” a bespectacled, ersatz duck descended with a $100 prize?

“Talking to a rubber duck doesn’t make me feel happy,” explains Reem, “but figuring what to do with the duck’s help does.”

(Keep your eye on Reem, by the way. Going places, guaranteed.)

What these particular young folks know, and what sometimes eludes their overthinking elders, is that happiness is not a seamless state signified by a rainbow decal on the rear windshield. It comes and goes. Begins and ends.

The happiest person will be less so if told at the auto repair shop that the throttle needs work, $400, debit cards accepted, or upon receiving a postcard from the doctor saying, buck up, it’s time for a colonoscopy, or, even, as recently occurred, the Mets drearily lose a doubleheader in St. Louis, each game by one run.

Meanwhile, the Times reports, Finland again earned top spot in the World Happiness Report (we’re Number 24, by the way and that was before news of Christmas doll rationing – two per customer, please, not 30 – and plan to reopen Alcatraz).

Writer Molly Young found that even with happiness abounding – saunas, cloudberry juice, cordial Finnish people and, as Young playfully notes, an absence of Jeff Bezos, she was ready to return home to Brooklyn.

Potholes, yes. Medical bills. Child care costs. But fewer expectations. Happiness in Finland, Young said, was making her “exceedingly glum.” Government saunas may be overdoing civic virtue.

Don’t try too hard is the obvious lesson.

Ponder the jellyfish. Cheer the Matildas. In pursuit of happiness, speak to a duck.

Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive