Would you be happier if you had more money? Most people think they would. Studies show however, that people's happiness does not increase commensurate to their wealth. The United States is the richest country in the world, and yet many people here are no happier than people in countries who live with much less. Published every year, the Human Development Index, or HDI, is a scoring mechanism used by the United Nations to measure, for lack of a better term, Gross National Happiness. The HDI takes into account three indicators: lifespan, educational attainment, and adjusted real income. According to the 2004 Human Development Report, the top-ten "happiest" countries, in order according to that index, are: Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, United States, Japan, and Ireland (192).

When we look at different countries with different cultures, and try to compare their overall levels of happiness, the convoluted data can skew our perspective. Comparing one country's happiness level to another's becomes quite difficult.