As our dear readers may recall, less than a month ago, we wrote about the fact that the OECD named Denmark the “World’s Happiest Country.” Days later, Bloomberg reported that the OECD changed their mind and gave that designation to Australia.
And the Australians were probably singing songs of glee at the Sydney Opera House until now… because the Huffington Post recently reported that the New Economics Foundation has declared Costa Rica to be the happiest country in the world!
We at NotTheWorstNews love Australia, the country that ranks number four in visits to this site. And we love Denmark, the country that ranks number seven. And we could have a lot of funny jokes about there being an obvious correlation between visiting this site and national happiness, except for one thing: our statistics show one person from Costa Rica has visited this site. It’s legal details like these that make it impossible to run a headline like “Your Country Is Definitely Not The Happiest In The World!” Thanks, one person from Costa Rica who visited our site, but didn’t even bother to leave a comment!
Still, we feel bad for the people of Australia and Denmark, and remind them things could be worse, so here are:
3 Worse Countries That Could Dethrone You As The World’s Happiest Country Than Costa Rica
1. Country Music. We all know country songs have traditionally depressing lyrics, so it would be a sad state of affairs if your country got dethroned by country music on the happy-o-meter. After all, this is a genre of music where beautiful American Idols like Carrie Underwood sing songs suggesting “Jesus Take The Wheel.” We have confirmed that Jesus does not have a driver’s license, making that terrible advice, and therefore the wrong path to happiness! So Costa Rica, don’t feel less happy if someone else declares another country to be the world’s happiest country next week – as long as it’s not country music.
2. The Country Bear Jamboree. Look, we like anyone would expect animatronic Disney theme park bears to deliver a positive message. But a quick glance at the Wikipedia listing of songs performed by said bears includes a track called “Tears Will Be the Chaser For Your Wine.” We don’t know how singing about tears or wine is appropriate for children. So it seems Disney has created a show with lyrics sadder than Carrie Underwood letting an unlicensed Jesus take the wheel of her gas-guzzling, high-speed Ford Mustang she told CNN she was still driving after recording that song. So Australia, being told your country was less happy than the Country Bear Jamboree would be a worse situation, and also difficult to reverse, as it’s hard to convince a panel of animatronic bears to appeal a lower bear decision.
3. Countrywide Financial. This former mortgage lender, now owned by Bank of America, apparently had bad sub-prime lending practices that contributed to a financial meltdown that not only affected America, but every other country in the world in a near global economic collapse! What a party-pooper! And if your country lost the “World’s Happiest Country” title to a corporation called “Countrywide” that contributed to Countrywide misery in many countries, that would indeed be worse news! So since this is unlikely to happen, the folks in Denmark can all resume being happy by heading down to Disney’s Country Bear Jamboree, and watch happy-looking animatronic bears sing sad songs that they hopefully don’t understand the lyrics to because they’re not in Danish.