Heidi and I decided to travel to Florida to visit her parents for Christmas. I was excited for a lot of reasons but one item of business was traveling through the Deep South, something I have never done before. I can now officially check of Mississippi and Alabama from the states I have at least passed through. I thought I was a lot closer to making all fifty but I still have to visit (not including airports) Hawaii, Tennessee, Montana, the Carolinas, Alaska, the Dakotas, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas, Rhode Island, Michigan and Connecticut.
But as we were driving I thought of a recent study by Live Science. They wanted to find out which states were the happiest. They did so by dealing out surveys to 1.3 million Americans to determine their personal level of happiness. The second part was a look at objective measures including crowding, air quality, home prices and other factors that impact the quality of life. This is what they found beginning with the most happy:
1. Louisiana
2. Hawaii
3. Florida
4. Tennessee
5. Arizona
6. Mississippi
7. Montana
8. South Carolina
9. Alabama
10. Maine
11. Alaska
12. North Carolina
13. Wyoming
14. Idaho
15. South Dakota
16. Texas
17. Arkansas
18. Vermont
19. Georgia
20. Oklahoma
21. Colorado
22. Delaware
23. Utah
24. New Mexico
25. North Dakota
26. Minnesota
27. New Hampshire
28. Virginia
29. Wisconsin
30. Oregon
31. Iowa
32. Kansas
33. Nebraska
34. West Virginia
35. Kentucky
36. Washington
37. District of Columbia
38. Missouri
39. Nevada
40. Maryland
41. Pennsylvania
42. Rhode Island
43. Massachusetts
44. Ohio
45. Illinois
46. California
47. Indiana
48. Michigan
49. New Jersey
50. Connecticut
51. New York
So where does your state rank? The study found that warmer states seem to be the happier place. I guess they avoid Seasonal Affective Disorder. But what really caught my attention was that the wealthiest states were not necessarily the happiest. I mean come on, Mississippi is #6 and they are the poorest state in the country. Money really can't buy happiness. Of course that is easy for a poor guy like myself to say.
I look at this list and think about where we have lived and I don't know if I agree. We loved Las Vegas but Nevada is a whopping #39 . I can see that though, there is a lot of opportunities for misery there. We also really enjoyed Maryland but at #40 it is even lower than Nevada. Texas is #16 but I thought it would be much higher as most Texans feel the state is the greatest in the nation. It is no secret I cannot stand Utah but it is ranked #23.
Well, what do you think? Heidi and I are still debating what state should be our ultimate home or whether we should remain nomads. According to this list Louisiana would probably make us happier. I do love eating fried dough in the most corrupt city in the country. Hmm.
P.S. Heidi's parents are moving from Florida and the name of their realtor's name is Andrew Barnard. Hee hee hee.
7 comments:
Is New York not on the list, or am I losing it?
Oops, I left New York off, it was #51.
ds
I am surprised that Louisiana is number one!
I'm pretty happy in my state although it is clear at the bottom.
I'm also surprised Texas wasn't higher on the list. Happy Birthday to Henry!!!!
Last week I read a study about the rankings of the most religious states.
I never know what to, or how much to believe, about these rankings, but they are interesting all the same.
I heard of another study a few weeks ago that was mentioned in a Salt Lake newspaper that showed Utah as one of the happiest states. I doubt that that study was completely valid either, but it just goes to show that such studies are often, suffice it to say, subjective.
As for your dislike of Utah, I still don't understand that. I love it here. I know so many good people here that try to love others and make the world a better place. Of course, the people here have problems like everyone else on the planet. I can only wonder that your disappointment with this state stems from having too high expectations for it's people. All we like sheep have gone astray...
I've lived in and/or visited several states myself (including Puerto Rico) as well, and Utah, in my opinion, takes the cake in comparison to all of them. All the places I've been have had such nice, kind, good people. No doubt we could be happy living anywhere because happiness doesn't have as much to do with where we are as it does with how we live, eh?
At any rate, I'll always call Utah my home, no matter where I end up.
HAHAH Andrew Banard! hahah I love how you slip that in! I think Texas is fairly ranked...we can't win them all. I just got back from LA and I am really surprised it's #1! that's a shocker..I think just by breathing the air on bourbon street i got an STD...
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