Happiness Lessons from Around the World

Happiness Is Knowing Where You Come From (Switzerland)

The Swiss are deeply rooted in place. Their passports list the name of their ancestral town. Not their hometown but the town of their roots. Maybe they weren't born there. Maybe they've never even been there. But it is their home. It's been said that the Swiss only become Swiss upon leaving the country. Until then, they are Genevans or Zurichers, or otherwise defined by where they happen to come from. No wonder it was the Swiss who invented the modern concept of homesickness; they were the first to put a word, heimweh to that nagging feeling of dislocation, that feeling of loss we experience when uprooted from the place we call home.

Happiness Is In Your Backyard (America)

My passport is tucked into my desk drawer again. I am relearning the pleasures of home. The simple joys of waking up in the same bed every morning. The pleasant realization that familiarity breeds contentment and not only contempt. I am more aware of the corrosive nature of envy and try to squelch it before it grows. I don't take my failures quite so hard anymore. I see beauty in a dark winter sky. I can appreciate a genuine smile from twenty yards.

Have I found happiness? I still own an obscene number of bags and am prone to debilitating bouts of hypochondria. But I do experience happy moments. I'm learning, as W.H. Auden counseled, to "dance while you can." He didn't say dance well, and for that I am grateful.