As of: March 30, 2024, 7:57 p.m
By: Lisa Metzger
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Sickness rates in Bavaria are at an all-time high. Bankruptcies are spreading. And in football – nothing is going well there either. Have Bayern lost their luck? It's all a question of perspective, says happiness researcher Annegret Braun.
Munich - Who doesn't know these days when you don't succeed: missed the train, scalded on coffee, ruined an important meeting and then even forgot your best friend's birthday. Reign times! In moments like this you often feel like your luck has deserted you. Not infrequently with the thought - “Of course this will happen to me again. I'm just unlucky."
Annegret Braun can only smile at such attributions. The 61-year-old is a freelance cultural scientist and has already researched many topics - happiness, she says, is undoubtedly a “very difficult” field of research. There are different approaches, many methods and ultimately everyone understands happiness differently.
The happiest people live in Bavaria – in general. This is also due to the Bavarian identity. © Imago/Shotshop/Westend61
Happiness is a contrasting experience
Ms. Braun, tell us the secret: How do we become happy?
Dr. Annegret Braun:
Not wanting to be permanently happy. Because that's exactly what doesn't make you happy. Happiness is a contrasting experience. We also need moments when we are not feeling so well. If you were permanently happy, you wouldn't want to change anything. You would always be the same.
At the moment, many people have the opposite feeling. Crises everywhere you look: The economy is doing badly, everything is becoming more expensive and many people are also facing challenges in their private lives: loneliness is increasing, as are sick notes due to mental health issues. Are we increasingly losing happiness in society?
I would be careful about mental illness. You definitely have to take this seriously. However, the expectation of happiness in our society is generally unrealistically high. Social media is also involved in this. You see others on vacation, at dinner, great moments, always radiant. Smiling doesn't necessarily mean that someone is happy. But our brain associates it with it. Sentences like 'You have to do something for your happiness' also create pressure to be constantly happy and suggest that unhappy moments have to be overcome as quickly as possible. Ultimately, the search for happiness is so high in our society because behind the search for happiness there is also a search for meaning.
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In times of inflation, an obvious question: Are material goods becoming more important for people's sense of happiness?
In fact, people look for happiness in material things. But when people talk about how they experience happiness, they see that being with friends and family makes them happy. People often underestimate the happiness that such moments bring and overestimate the happiness that material things bring.
People in Bavaria are happier: the place definitely has an influence
In various surveys, such as the Happiness Atlas 2023, Bavaria consistently ranks at the top when it comes to people's life satisfaction. This is often explained by the high standard of living of the people. Do you see it that way too or do you have a different opinion?
First of all: I find country surveys very questionable. Finland, for example, has been the happiest country in the last two or three years, even though there is a lot of depression and the suicide rate is much higher than in Germany. So you have to ask yourself how reliable such statements really are. The other thing you mention is financial. Money plays a role to a certain point. Being able to pay your rent and live your daily life without worrying about money makes a big impact. But what goes beyond that, what you have more, hardly plays a role in your feeling of happiness.
The average income is usually higher in the south of Germany than in the north. In addition to the financial aspect, do you see any other factor that speaks for the Bavarians' high level of life satisfaction?
Belonging plays a huge role in the feeling of happiness. The question of where you feel at home and whether you have a connection is very important. And you can see that more clearly in Bavaria than anywhere else: people there are very proud of their country. This saying “Mia sind mia” is no coincidence: customs, festivals – Bavaria has enough of all of this and strengthens the feeling of community. Having your place in life has a strong influence on identity and therefore on happiness.
Ms. Braun, thank you for the interview.
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