Happiness is more difficult to define than it would seem at first blush. It’s even more difficult to quantify, and it can also be difficult to achieve with so many competing interests and emotions.
We all want to be happy, though, so we study what makes people happy and what doesn’t. We try to apply the lessons learned to our lives, adding kittens, removing alligators, and trying to spend in a way that will bring us joy.
I’ve studied the World Happiness Report, claimed that happiness is an early retirement, and explored the economics of happiness. One thing I hadn’t considered is the relationship between intelligence and happiness.
He found that people from Singapore and Hong Kong came out on top, followed by South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, and Italy as the top seven countries.
The United States has an average IQ of 98, which puts it just below the average IQ in the world of 98.36. You would think that with all our wealth and fancy universities, Americans would have a higher average IQ.