i've spent a lot of my life seeking
happiness
five and a half years ago i made a video
on this very subject
it was one of the first videos i ever
made wow i feel like so much of what
i've made over the course of my career
has been driven by my desire to figure
things out to chart out these choppy
waters
i want to live a happy life but i feel
like i live in a world that promises so
many false answers to my questions
so i took a little trip to the happiest
part of the world a region that
consistently ranks
the highest in that regard this is going
to be the first in many adventures i
plan to have in this corner of the globe
it's funny it's a hard thing to talk
about happiness with people
paradoxically i've put so much pressure
on myself to attain it that i would
often make myself
more unhappy so in this new series
exploring happiness i've decided to
start in the netherlands which along
with the nordic countries regularly
lands at the very top of the world
happiness report
a publication from the un that's exactly
where i went
and i'd like to share with you what i
learned when i was there
my journey into this world begins in a
town called eindhoven where i visited my
friends sadia and robin who run the
channel pickup lines
look at you you just look happy
you just look happy like look at how
you're sitting that's a that's a happy
man
posture with the cup of coffee
would you say coffee has like an
influence on your happiness definitely
necessity robin was able to invite a few
friends over
that i'm going to ask questions
questions
too about being touched yes exactly
i need to get to the bottom of this you
know i need to figure out like all right
what's what's really going on here i'm
doing research on
happiness in this part of the world i
have to have your input this is going to
give you
a little bit of a heads up you're
talking to engineers right now so
they're gonna immediately think like
okay what's happiness first let's get
the definition that's right you know
it's happiness compared to other
countries right so that's what you have
to think about like why are we more
happy than
yeah but maybe not maybe you think why
am i happy what makes me happy
what enables me to be happy seeing you
only once a week
[Laughter]
it turns out this is a tricky thing to
pin down i reject the idea of a
universal definition of happiness
not all things can be measured precisely
that being said
it is interesting to break down how it
works and what sorts of trends we can
discover
usually when we talk about happiness
rankings it's based off of the world
happiness report
which comes out yearly and is based on
individuals ratings of their own lives
so in many ways it's self-evaluated
this is done using a cancer ladder
survey people are asked to rate their
own lives on a scale of 0 to 10
and the report correlates the life
evaluation results with various life
factors
so you guys feel like there's okay
you've talked about how it's like the
country is set up so that it's
it's hard to hit rock bottom is there a
cultural aspect do you think that's in
the mix as well
people really open easy really direct i
think that's something that sometimes
clashes with other countries
and really direct in in what we say but
it's all
meant in the best way possible so it
just makes it really easy too yeah
dutch directness is that's harsh for
an outsider yeah it's it's ridiculous
but it
i think it's a very good point the fact
that you're getting it off your chest
you say it as it is
you don't hold things inside dutch
people are really hard to really offend
like of course you're not going to be
happy for instead work if somebody tells
you like you're not doing your job well
they're not going to be like like hurt
with an they're just going to be
like okay
criticism whatever because they're used
to people being so direct
maybe because everything is so so flat
and boring and easy and risk-free
we just make an effort to make
everything as crazy as possible
like crazy everything is a party make it
make a party then we make it yeah
exactly i think that's kind of true
right we there's so much to do always
you guys really do seem pretty happy
there was one word that kept coming up
that seemed inextricably linked to
happiness
the zealocyte is the easiest translation
would be i think coziness
but that doesn't really capture the
meaning because his alakai is
bigger it's a birthday it's sitting
around the fire
it's chatting it's having a warm drink
with your friends or having a beer
sitting out on the terraces feeling safe
feeling
it's laughing your friends
but it's not being at the club exactly
exactly exactly
exactly the social warmth that is i
think the best
people on in the comment section are
going to go mentally
why because like it's like a dutch thing
that everybody
everybody has a hard time defining this
i guess
is a word you can't really translate
into english it's about connection
by itself meaning companion okay so i
would love to hear your thoughts
on that just people
sitting together drinking a coffee
eating a cookie and then after they're
drinking a beer and it's everlasting
everlasting love
i have a piece of wood with a big
fireplace in it and every
forest and every month i go with five
six seven friends we go there and we
talking about making jokes drinking a
beer
roasting something vegan you know
what is it that makes your life really
worth
[Laughter]
having grown up in the us i have always
felt a lot of pressure to be happy
as if it's a tangible place as if there
was a rush to get there
as if not being there means you're
somehow broken or screwed up in some way
it's weird to think that the pursuit of
happiness can make us so unhappy
i think it's amazing how joy can spring
out of spontaneous moments
unplanned and unpaintable like little
gifts from god reminding us that life is
indeed very beautiful
i mean over here in the netherlands and
maybe also in the us you have more
maybe the physical struggles like the
pressure struggles from
uh yeah everything is so good in here so
make something at your life and over
i don't know in a more poor country you
have more like a surprise
stress and happiness and i don't know
like that kind of stuff
so it's different happiness is over
there i think a little bit different
than here yeah the measure is different
yeah
i spent some time exploring the country
with sadia
look at these glasses are these
prescription or just because you're
trying to look hipster
oh my god what do you think the hamster
one
are you serious yeah
[Music]
yeah like i said hipster are you kidding
me dude i'm fine i can see perfectly
then you have very very bad eyesight
that really hurts yeah i was gonna say
you cannot possibly
that there's no way you were able to see
not only with that where have you taken
me
i've taken you to ravenclaw that's kind
of
what it sounds like what the heck what
is it actually called
ravenstein i think there there you go
how many of these little towns have you
visited in the netherlands do you feel
like it's a country loaded with them
there's so many of them and they're so
cute i feel like every time i see it
i'm overwhelmed by how adorable it is it
just feels like little like hobbiton
shires like little
hobbit homes and little lakes and the
little little bikes everywhere
so cute
i'm a big fan of this like brick
aesthetic going on here all over the
place
extremely quaint i love being canadian
and i love i loved having lived in
canada i never thought i would have
lived somewhere else
and i remember the first time i came to
the netherlands i was like i can see
myself living here
so i think that says something like it's
a beautiful country i think they really
value
um taking like even pause like a pause
a break in a working day you know i feel
like the north american mentality anyway
is like go go glorifying busy
and i think with the dutch they really
like will stop to have a coffee together
to converse to connect
and i remember the first few times i did
that with dutch people i kept feeling
like i was being a nuisance to them like
i was trying to wrap up the conversation
and be like
no no you go you do your own thing but
like they want to connect they want to
take it easy they want to step away from
work for a moment
i think another thing is that a lot of
dutch people bike everywhere and there's
something to be said
for that physical activity right and
often when i'm like oh it's such a good
workout dutch people will be like that's
not a workout that's commuting
because they don't see it as a workout
despite the fact that like your heart
rate is high you're
often biking 20 30 minutes to and from
work or school
and that's just standard that's normal
that's very normal
this is the netherlands for you
so i think i mean that's that's gotta
say something about your mental state
right if you're constantly active
you know however cliche it's gonna sound
maybe happiness is way simpler than
what's marketed to us
[Music]
one of the highlights of last year for
me was coming here
ah and spending time with you guys a
huge part of my happiness is spending
time with
people i care about and that like share
that excitement for life
in their own way super important to have
that
life is meant to be shared in many ways
absolutely
[Music]
okay so this is a series to be continued
i have some
really cool stuff i'm very excited about
coming soon
i think the topic of happiness and how
we choose to spend our lives is
endlessly fascinating so fascinating in
fact that i have made a class
actually related to the subject called
how to document your life
which is available on skillshare who are
the sponsor of this video for those of
you that don't know
skillshare is a platform where you can
learn anything from how to shoot and
edit a video
to how to draw or design or document
your life
so if you're interested the first 1 000
of you that use the link in the
description below will get a one month
free trial of skillshare so you can
start exploring your creativity today
this is an offer that we'll be running
through the summer consider checking it
out and if you check out one of my
classes on there i would absolutely love
to know
what you think as always my current
classes on there cover the topics of
capturing special moments in your life
creativity finding your voice and
presenting yourself
online thank you to skillshare for
sponsoring this video and thank you to
you guys for watching
i don't usually ask for this but this
current season of content is going to
come to an
end pretty soon before i you know pick
things up a little bit down the road
for the next season of content and one
way or a couple ways really that you can
help
me out with this and to know about my
future content is if you
give this video a like and if you hit
the bell icon to know about future
uploads when i pick things back up again
so consider it there's no obligation
obviously
i just want to say once again thank you
for watching this video and
i'll see you guys soon