Actually, happiness isn’t within

Christian Science Monitor: Actually, happiness isn't within

Some cultures are simply better at producing happy citizens than others.

A new year is upon us, and the self-help industrial complex is in full swing, pestering us to slim down, bulk up, become a new you, a better you, a happier you. Yes, it's all about you. The 1970s may have been the "Me Decade," but the naught years are shaping up to be the "You Decade."

There is, it turns out, little difference between You and Me. Both outlooks reflect a firmly held and particularly American belief that happiness lies deep inside the inner you, or me, or whatever. ….

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In fact, psychologists at the University of Leicester in Britain recently produced the world's first map of happiness. Using data from the emerging science of happiness, they created a color-coded atlas of bliss, a topography of the human spirit, from Algeria to Zimbabwe. It's not climate or topography or some mysterious "energy" that is at work here, but national culture. Some cultures are simply better at producing happy citizens than others.

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The emerging science of happiness has found that the single biggest determinant of our happiness is the quantity and the quality of our relationships.