The government of Bhutan has a “happiness index.” You know–like most governments keep track of things like unemployment, or poverty? Bhutan keeps measurements of how happy people say they are.

OK. Geography first: where the heck is Bhutan? It’s in south Asia, kind of underneath where the Himalayan mountains are, north and west of Thailand, north and east of India. Does that help?

Second: Bhutan is POOR. By our standards, I mean. Folks ain’t got much dough. But if they have a government that cares enough to keep track of their happiness, I’d say they’re richer than we are, in some ways.

What do you think? If the US measured happiness, where do you think we’d stack up? Which countries do you think are “happier” than us? Who would we be “happier” than? And…what in the world would we be measuring to find out our happiness?