One more thing.....

Going back to that happiness bit...

The book has a great chapter about my new favorite country Iceland. In it, the author says that Iceland is rich enough and laid back enough that culturally, their ideal isn't to become incredibly successful doing one particular thing but to be moderately successful in a variety of things. So most Icelandic people are like bankers for a couple of years and then suddenly decide to become fishermen for a couple of years and after that doing that, well, what the fuck, let's be a poet? Why do just one thing when you can do many things-- variety is the spice of life, right? And since they have huge generous government benefits (probably too much considering how expensive the country is), people have all the freedom to go off and be a medieval literature professor/banker/computer engineer. This idea is such a part of their culture, in fact, that they, in some ways, respect people who fail, or at least fail in the right kind of way, more than they do people who succeed. Better to try something and make an effort at it than not try something-- after all, who knows what kind of poet you'll be until you actually make a go of being a poet.

So, hmmm.....belief that being super successful at one thing isn't that important...generous social benefits that allow you to play around in life...respect of the nobility of failure....I want to move to Iceland!