The research group Sinus in Germany went out and asked Germans about their happiness. I know....it's an odd topic, but the results are a bit surprising.
So Sinus says....the majority of Germans (2 out of 3) are happy. Maybe they aren't five-star happy, but they are happy enough. They aren't suffering....the economy is doing OK....etc. So there's only a third of the nation who aren't happy.
But then Sinus asked a second question. Do you think other Germans are happy? This was the shocker. The majority of Germans (just over half) said that their friends, neighbors, relatives, associates....are unhappy.
What's this about? Perception.
Germans whine a good bit. Everyone knows this, and it's perfectly OK to whine. The issue is that people whine on a daily basis now. They whine about the trains running late, the cost of living, the poor quality of public TV, taxes, pensions, welfare, terrorism, migrants, politics, social media, lack of privacy, too much social media, BREXIT, Trump, diesel cars, escalating electrical costs, vacations that went wrong, Chinese tourists, too much snow, too little snow, bridges that ought to be replaced, potholes, bad behavior kids, etc.
The public forum shows highlight the continual 'thread' of German society now. There are brief moments of relief in mid-summer....mostly because the public forum crowd have gone on some month-long holiday in France or Greece. And around mid-December, there might be a three-week period where whine-chatter dissolves away and folks try to be cheerful during the Christmas holidays.
The perception here? Oddly, the survey does prove that on a personal level....with Germans looking only at themselves, they reach a happiness state of mind. It's only when they think of others.....they perceive them being unhappy.
The blunt truth is that Germans need some relief.
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