Work–life balance – Mental Flowers

We’re a lot happier as a nation than I was otherwise led to believe. Um, go us?

We’re No. 6! That’s according to new data from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development , which on Tuesday released results of a survey measuring quality of life in 36 industrialized nations.

For the last three years, the Paris-based outfit has weighed 11 criteria, including housing, income, jobs, environment, safety and work-life balance. For the third year in a row, Australia was the big winner, thanks in large part to an economy that managed to avoid the global recession of the last decade.

The U.S. hobbled across the finish line in sixth place, behind Sweden, Canada, Norway and Switzerland, which ranked second through fifth, respectively.

more via Daum: Americans’ happiness score – latimes.com.

But seriously (ha ha), I feel like happiness scoring, as subjective as it is, is a good way of measuring our overall health and well being. It also indicates we’re doing okay and getting time in our lives for all the important stuff like family and time to recreate. I like Bhutan’s use of grass national happiness as a major marker for the nation’s well-being (lovely country, BTW, just be prepared for an exciting landing).