Want a Happy Life? Move to Canada. Want a Meaningful Life? Move to Cuba: A Selection from Paul Bloom’s The Sweet Spot (2021)

“In 2007, Gallup polled more than 140,000 respondents in 132 countries. They had the standard question for life satisfaction—people were asked to indicate where their current life stands on a ladder scale ranging from 0 (worst possible life) to 10 (best possible life). But they also had one other relevant question: ‘Do you feel your life has an important purpose or meaning?’

The happiest countries were the usual suspects—Norway, Australia, Canada, and so on. They are wealthy, secure, peaceful, with good social support. This survey, like the others, found that life satisfaction is strongly correlated with GDP per capita.

But in contrast, the countries where people reported the most meaningful lives included Sierra Leone, Togo, Senegal, Ecuador, Laos, Chad, Angola, Cuba, Kuwait, and the UAE—many of which had little wealth, security, or peace. Indeed, GDP had a negative relationship with meaning. The poorer the country, the more likely people were to say that their lives had an important purpose or meaning. . . .

I’ve argued against simple hedonism early on, but these data should make us appreciate the value of pleasure and happiness. They should make us, if not pro-hedonist, at least anti-anti-hedonist. After all, where would you rather live, Norway or Chad? Would you rather settle in Canada or Sierra Leone? Perhaps there isn’t necessarily a right answer to these questions, but if this is what the contrast between happiness and meaning looks like, I’d take happiness, and I bet most people, including many of the residents of Chad and Sierra Leone, would agree with me.”—Paul Bloom, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning (2021)