Can anyone truly measure happiness? The folks at Gallup are giving it everything they’ve got. Their Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, active for the past three years, is a daily assessment of U.S. residents’ health and general well-being. Seven days a week, 350 days a year (taking time off only for major holidays), Gallup intensively interviews at least 1,000 adults on topics relating to their emotional and physical health, work and home life, and access to basic needs like food, shelter, and health care.
This month, the New York Times mapped Gallup’s results and enlisted them to find the happiest person in America by making a composite based on their exhaustive statistics.
Gallup’s answer: he’s a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married, has children, lives in Hawaii, runs his own business and has a household income of more than $120,000 a year. A few phone calls later and…
Meet Alvin Wong. He is a 5-foot-10, 69-year-old, Chinese-American, Kosher-observing Jew, who’s married with children and lives in Honolulu. He runs his own health care management business and earns more than $120,000 a year.
If you’re disappointed that Alvin Wong was named the happiest American alive today, don’t worry. Tomorrow, it could be you.
Sources: Gallup-Healthways, New York Times
Image by manduhsaurus, licensed under Creative Commons.
