Eric Weiner Chapter Summary

Eric Weiner was ready to go for an adventure. His plan was to search the happiest place to live in the world. His first place to visit was the Netherlands. The chapter begin when the author was in a café near in downtown Rotterdam. The place was really cozy, large and upscale. Because everyone was smoking, he lit up his cigar and ordered a Trapiste beer. While he was drinking this delicious warm beer, he noticed that Dutch is very similar to English spoken backwards. He stayed a long time in the Café as all the Europeans did. While he was walking to his cozy hotel dining room, he noticed a lot of immigrants. He wondered if the difference of culture and if the legalization of alcohol and drugs can create some tension between immigrants and Dutch people. During his dinner, he learned the concept of inter course. At
Today, he is at the forefront of the field of happiness research. Even if some colleagues were unconvinced about his research, he was published. As the Greek or Roman philosophers, Veenhoven continued to ask himself about the question of happiness. After, he explained how the new science of happiness was created. At first, it needed studies with scientific vocabulary to be taken seriously. So the scientists named it “subjective well-being”, then they needed numbers. Trying to measure happiness, the scientists made some research about the brain to identify which pictures make the good or bad mood regions of the brain react. However, Veenhoven focused more about questioning people about their happiness. The trouble is that the definition of bliss is different for each person. Also, people report a higher happiness level face to face, because it’s well seen and sexy to look happy. Another fact that influences happiness studies is reverse causality. It’s hard to explain if you are happy because you do something or if you do something because you are