I'm glad you stopped by to comment @katharsisdrill! I was hoping you would... another perspective from "over there."

It's an interesting experience — even after living in the USA since 1981 — to try to explain certain aspects of another culture. Like hygge. And lykke/lykkelig, as a representation of "happy."

As I read your comment I sense you're explaining "the full range of human experience" as the base stone (grundsten) of many aspects of life. And that's what I try to explain to people about "Danish happiness" when they bring up these surveys and reports.

If you're not defining life in terms of needing very specific things (e.g. "happiness") then you all all things, which then means you aren't as busy describing some things as "bad" or "not-good," and if you're less busy with worry, then you're closer to "lykke" which is just a general sense of satisfaction(?) with existence. It's not a specific thing you can put into a bottle and sell.

It seems perhaps that people in the USA are less "happy" because they are trying to define this thing by very specific concepts: "When I make $80,000 a year I will be happy!"

No. No you won't. Perhaps you will have one of life's puzzle pieces, but you will NOT be "happy."

The English language is oddly limiting, in some ways. I have tried to explain lykke and glæde and even velvære as parts of Danish "happiness." But then it's similar with the idea of "love." There is one word in English, and six in Greek... maybe it all points to what matters most to different cultures?

Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful comment!