The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World

by Eric Weiner

When I told friends I was going to Switzerland as part of my research into happiness, some people replied, “Don’t they have a high suicide rate?” Yes, they do, one of the highest in the world. This seems to make absolutely no sense. How can a happy country have a high suicide rate? In fact, it’s easily explained. First of all, the number of suicides is still statistically low, so it doesn’t affect the happiness surveys very much, since the odds of the researchers interviewing a suicidal person are quite low. But there’s another reason. The things that prevent us from killing ourselves are different from those that make us happy. Roman Catholic countries, for instance, tend to have very low suicide rates because of the Catholic prohibition on suicide. Yet that doesn’t mean these countries are happy. Good government, meaningful work, strong family ties—these are all major contributors to happiness, yet if you are unhappy, truly despondent, none of them will prevent you from committing suicide.