National pride isn’t at an all-time high around these parts, what with parliament having recently become into a circus and our citizens turning violently on our fellow Africans. It’s not exactly a scientific study but I imagine your Facebook news feed contains even more moaning than usual.

What is scientific is the World Happiness Report, released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations. How did we fare then? TimesLive reports:

Afghanistan and war-torn Syria joined eight sub-Saharan countries in Africa — Togo, Burundi, Benin, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Chad — as the 10 least happy countries.

Despite the conflict raging in Iraq, that country was ranked 112, ahead of South Africa, India, Kenya and Bulgaria.

That bold bit was my own emphasis, but as you can see it doesn’t make for pretty reading. And who is ruling the roost then? Switzerland comes out smelling like roses (and dark chocolate), although we shouldn’t forget about Bhutan. This from CNN:

The tiny country of Bhutan, a very happy country famous for measuring the “Gross National Happiness” of its people, gets the credit for focusing world attention on happiness: Its Prime Minister proposed the idea of a World Happiness Day to the United Nations in 2011.

So how can we put more smiles on dials then? How about a 3 000-year-old trick from the Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, David Wolpes:

I’ve met many people who work with the poor, and very few of them are unhappy. They may be frustrated at lack of progress, but they don’t have the pouting, resentful jealousies the rest of us develop when we only look at the lives of those who have more than we do.

Perhaps the key lies in each and every one of us doing our little bit to make this home of ours a better place, something we would do well not to forget.

[sources:cnn&time&timeslive]