Why are some people happier than others? And how can we improve the quality of our lives? These are the two main questions I have been trying to answer for over a decade.
I run the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen – and, no, we don’t have unicorns or chocolate fountains in the office. We try to understand through science how our work, money and relationships affect happiness – ours and yours.
Our goal: To help people around the globe do as the Danes do – and live happier and more fulfilled lives in 2025.
Happiness at Work: It’s Possible—Really
My latest book couldn’t be more timely or aptly titled – The Art of Danish Living – How the Happiest People in the World Find Joy at Work. My biggest superpower as a native Dane and happiness researcher is that I believe that work can and should be a source of happiness. If we design it right.
A growing number of studies suggest that by looking at your work differently, you can hack your way to a higher level of satisfaction.
Changing your perspective on work has been coined “work creation” by Amy Wrzesniewski, now a professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, and Jane Dutton, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Psychology at the Michigan Ross School of Business.
Prof. Wrzesniewski and Dutton examined a wide range of workers—tech workers, hospital cleaners, factory workers, and staff at a non-profit women’s advocacy organization.
Amy and her team noticed a key difference between hospital cleaners, not necessarily the most desirable jobs. Some of them saw themselves only as cleaners, while others focused on other functions or even invented tasks that were not part of the job description, such as making people laugh.
This was the case for one boy Amy interviewed. As part of the hospital’s custodial staff, his job was to clean up vomit when people were sick from chemotherapy. But his view was that cleaning was only one segment of his job – his real job was to cheer people up when they were feeling down, such as after chemotherapy.
If a patient felt embarrassed about vomiting all over the floor, his go-to joke would be, “Please keep doing this—that’s how I get my paycheck. If you can . . . I’m aiming for parquet in the future, maybe I can to get a few extra hours”.
We all have a to-do list to accomplish. But many of us have an opportunity to get more happiness at work, regardless of the tasks.
The key is to redefine what we actually do at work, building more of what we like into our jobs.
The joy of Arbejdsfællesskab: A working community
Beyond paid work, you can also find happiness in forming what we Danes call a “arbeidsfællesskab” — a “community of work” — a gathering of friends and neighbors organized to accomplish a task, something that may be a common good for the group and that we cannot accomplish alone.
My friend Ida and her family have worked together in this way with two other families. Every year, each of the families plans a big project, for example, to build an outdoor pizza oven, a chicken coop or a fence for the land where their sheep graze.
Together, they completed the three projects, one in the spring, one in the summer, and one in the fall, on a rotating basis. Each family makes sure that the necessary materials and supplies are purchased and that everyone brings tools. They work, eat and laugh together. Sounds like a great weekend to me.
Escape from the hedonic routine
As we enter 2025, this may be a good time to escape the hedonic financial rut. Don’t get me wrong, money doesn’t matter when it comes to happiness. But mainly because being without money causes stress, worry and unhappiness.
Not putting food on the table is definitely not a happy situation. People in well-paid jobs are happier and more satisfied with their lives and work than people who earn less money.
However, once a certain level of need is met, extra income doesn’t move the needle much when it comes to extra happiness. With money, as with most things in life, we see diminishing, marginal returns when it comes to happiness. Your first slice of cake is great—slice number eight, not so much. It’s the same with money.
The first money you receive is very important and will put food on the table and a roof over your head. But if you already earn a lot of money, then the more you earn, the more you tend to spend it on stupid things like a coat for your dog.
In addition, people often care more about their relative income than their absolute income. How much money do I make compared to Karen in accounting, or the Joneses next door?
And the thing is, you will always find someone who makes more money than you – and there will always be a higher number. I call it the syndrome of a million more, then I will be happy. You won’t.
Designing happiness at home
Instead, there’s a much higher return on happiness for investing in your relationships, and that’s where the Danish tradition of hygge comes in. Hygge can best be described as the art of creating a pleasant atmosphere.
And sometimes, we don’t need more than lighting a candle to cultivate a sense of hygge around our dinner tables.
“After reading about hygge I went out and bought these two chandeliers and started lighting them at dinner,” one of my readers told me.
He and his wife have three sons: 18-year-old twins and a son who was 15 at the time. When he first started lighting candles, his sons teased him. “What’s with the romance, Dad? Do you want to have dinner alone with mom?”
But he soon noticed small changes around the dinner table. Time seemed to slow down. Teenagers became more talkative. The change in atmosphere at the table put the boys in a storytelling mood.
“They don’t go into food alone anymore, they drink their wine, they tell us about their day.” Dinner time isn’t just about food anymore – it’s about Hygge. And now the boys are the ones who light the candles for dinner.
A small design change made a big impact. A different dinner arrangement had improved the way a family interacted. And I think that’s what our home should offer us – a place to be happy even in turbulent times.
For a happier 2025, the key is to focus on what you can control. We may not always have control over the events that affect us – but we always have control over how we approach things. And while we may live in a troubled world, we can make our lives a happy place.
In our little worlds we call home, we are masters of the universe. And maybe finding happiness at home this year will make us better equipped to help the world — and our offices — become a better place.
Meik Wiking is CEO of the Happiness Research Institute and author of the new book The Danish Art of Living – How the World’s Happiest People Find Joy at Work.“
#live #happily #Danes
Image Source : nypost.com