How Can We Meet Finland and Denmark’s HAPPINESS Rankings?
When I was in junior high school, a teacher asked the class,” If you can be guaranteed 1 of these things for the rest of your life, what would you choose—love, health, respect, loving family and friends, great job/career, money, fame, happiness? There were many different answers from everyone in my class of 25. After much contemplation, I chose happiness. To my surprise, I was the only one. After going through the class and asking students the reason for their choice, the teacher finally turned to me and paused. He asked me why I had chosen happiness. My answer was that it encompasses everything. I couldn't be happy without Love. And speaking of love; happiness would include a wonderful family and friends. We would all have great health and enough money to enjoy life. I would have a career where I contribute to the world. There would be harmony through mutual respect and a heart-centered society. The teacher turned to the class and said, “That was the best answer”. Pfew; that felt good. I had just bombed a math question earlier that day.
The United States does not rate high in global "happiness" rankings; we don’t even make the top 10. Though there are many factors at play, when examining why the top countries, such as Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden rate so high, one of two common denominators I noticed was that the citizens of these countries, don’t have the stress around health care the way we do. They can rest assured that they have a universal right to comprehensive health services free of charge. Boy, that would take a load of weight off of our lives. We can’t fully comprehend this until one of us is sick or injured, or we age.
There is another really BIG factor; the countries with the happiest people in the world also rank highest in gender equality. (No country has full gender equality yet, but these have by far the highest rankings in equality). Both men and women are significantly happier in these countries. The fuller a person of either gender is allowed to be, the more free they feel. If a man wants to show his emotions he is free to do so, because there is no longer a rigid definition of masculinity. Men are more interactive with their children and loved ones. If one wants to stay single, they remain single. In matters of the heart and commitment, with equality, deeper authentic relationships follow because when people are together now, it is because they want to be together, allowing a greater abundant flow through everyone's lives.
Meanwhile, here in the U.S., we have an old archaic way of being that never really worked and that the wise are evolving past. But those men at the top who have always had privilege over everyone else are fighting to keep things from changing. They don’t want the gender gap to heal and change and they are blasting the internet with false information and clickbait articles. Among many other things, they are meant to make men think that women are trying to take things away from them when, really, we just want to be able to give more. Now with a woman running for president, white men are especially being targeted by these fear-instilling posts to make them afraid of voting for a woman, and instead, they prod men to make choices against their own best interest; even making choices that will create a decline in societal and planetary wellness. When will we learn? It's time to take part in a healing change for a sustainable planet and a happier life.
Here I include quotes from an article written by Floyd Dell back in 1914, titled, “Feminism for Men”: “Feminism is going to make it possible for the first time for men to be free….For the ordinary man is prone to fall in love and marry and have children. Also the ordinary man frequently has a mother. He wants to see them all taken care of, since they are unable to take care of themselves. Only if he has them to think about, he is not free. A free man is a man who is ready to throw up his job whenever he feels like it. Whether he is a bricklayer who wants to go out on a sympathetic strike, or a poet who wants to quit writing drivel for the magazines, if he doesn’t do what he wants to do, he is not free. . . .And this will be true so long as women as a sex are dependent on men for support. They [men] want some one dependent on them more than they want a comrade…When you have got a woman in a box, and you pay rent on the box, her relationship to you insensibly changes character. It loses the fine excitement of democracy. It ceases to be companionship, for companionship is only possible in a democracy. It is no longer a sharing of life together—it is a breaking of life apart. Half a life—cooking, clothes, and children; half a life—business, politics, and baseball. It doesn’t make much difference which is the poorer half. Any half, when it comes to life, is very near to none at all.
Below are articles written by men who say that even radical feminism is beneficial to them. Most women aren't even asking for anything that should be considered radical. Women have much to contribute to society that we haven't been able to. So, women are simply asking for equal value as human beings, equal pay for equal work, and equal life opportunities; how that then works into personal relationships will be very individual.
Please explore these 2 articles, both by men—written a century apart: 1914 "Feminism for Men" & current-day article, "Radical Feminism is a Gift to Men."
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