I moved to Finland from the UK 40 years in the past – right here’s what life is like within the ‘world’s happiest nation’

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It’s that point of the yr once more in Finland. Mid-March is launch date for the annual UN World Happiness Report and we’re prime of the charts – for the seventh consecutive time. What Manchester Metropolis or Actual Madrid are to soccer, Finland is to happiness.

Forgive us if we’re getting a bit blasé about this honour. Everybody likes a praise however, frankly, there are extra urgent points. Our noisy Russian neighbour is rattling its sabres fairly loudly and a wave of business motion is responding to proposed austerity by our right-leaning authorities. Properly-travelled, well-educated Finns are solely too conscious that spring is in full swing throughout Europe, however right here the ice continues to be melting round our Baltic coasts and lakes. We’d be happier if all of it disappeared in a single day.

Once I first got here to stay in Finland as an English trainer within the Nineteen Eighties, the nation was a distant and unknown amount, quietly tucked away between Sweden’s Volvo and Abba to the West and the Soviet behemoth to the East. Michael Palin’s musical Monty Python tribute described it as “sadly uncared for and infrequently ignored” whereas admiring its non-existent “lofty mountains”.

It wasn’t till Nokia was established as a ubiquitous international model within the Nineties that Finland’s worldwide profile – the Suomi kuva, or ‘Finland picture’ – went up a couple of notches, and even then many non-Finns thought Nokia was a Japanese firm. However becoming a member of the EU in 1995 gave it an enormous increase, and the monumental accession to Nato in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine made a daring worldwide assertion.

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Many Finns are amused at how the earlier stereotype of monosyllabic, gloomy reticence, echoed within the movies of the Kaurismäki brothers Aki and Mika, has mutated to one in every of cheerful optimism. The stereotype was all the time an over-generalisation in any case, as stereotypes are usually. Social distancing in the course of the Covid pandemic was speculated to be straightforward for Finns, reputed to be particularly protecting of their ‘non-public area’. However that concept is contradicted by the truth that Finns love dropping themselves in a pageant or rowdy sports activities crowd as a lot as the following nation. Having mentioned that, Finland is an enormous nation with a lot of area and plentiful pure magnificence, so it’s comparatively straightforward to be alone if you wish to.

We’re grateful for the constructive consideration, however we Finns (following Brexit, I’m a twin Finn-Brit citizen) suppose the UN ought to be monitoring one thing extra nuanced than ‘happiness’, which is by nature a transient high quality. Many would favor ‘contentment’, an acceptance that life could be good inside parameters of lifelike expectation, in a society the place the hole between the wealthy and the much less prosperous tends to be narrower than in different nations. We will’t deny that, other than these lengthy, cussed winters, Finland has lots going for it. The northerly location means the lengthy mild summer season days, in any case, provide compensation for the quick darkish ones.

There aren’t any earthquakes or volcanoes. Mislay your telephone or pockets and there’s a good chance that you simply’ll get it again. Schooling requirements might need slipped from their best-in-the-world standing, however they’re nonetheless fairly good. We now have to pay a cost for many well being care, but it surely’s inexpensive and when you get to the entrance of the queue the standard is nice. There’s a usually enhanced consciousness and appreciation of the setting. Public transport is widespread and usually environment friendly. A bent to drink an excessive amount of has by no means been deterred considerably by the excessive value of alcohol, however you get the sense that getting drunk doesn’t determine on the youth ‘cool’ register.

Finns attribute to themselves a sure stoicism, an uncomplaining heads-down willpower to cope with what’s in entrance of them. They’ve a phrase for this supposed advantage: sisu. It might be utilized to easy duties, like having to clear the snow off your automotive after a blizzard, in addition to greater challenges, reminiscent of resisting Soviet invasion in the course of the Second World Battle. It’s a perceived high quality that has its roots within the agrarian life-style that preceded the feverish urbanisation of current a long time, that has seen the capital Helsinki and different cities broaden and develop.

When you solely go to the more and more cosmopolitan and culturally vibrant seaside capital Helsinki on a heat summer season day, with out venturing to one of many smaller provincial cities with their unemployment and aversion to immigration, you possibly can simply settle for that this might properly be the happiest place on Earth. The newly elected president, the media-friendly polyglot Alexander Stubb, was fast to pronounce that Finnish happiness rests on three major pillars: nature, belief and schooling. Extra accustomed to worldwide consideration than they was, most Finns chuckle or shrug on the accolade. They’re arduous to impress, however they’ll be completely happy sufficient in the event that they make it eight in a row this time subsequent yr.

Learn extra: How this Finnish ‘sauna capital of the world’ helped me get better from burnout