The Geography of Bliss

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In these days of wars and rumors of wars, haven’t you ever dreamed of a place where there was peace and security, where living was not a struggle but a lasting delight —Lost Horizon, directed by Frank Capra, 1937
Introduction My bags were packed and my provisions loaded. I was ready for adventure. And so, on a late summer afternoon, I dragged my reluctant friend Drew off to explore new worlds and, I hoped, to find some happiness along the way. I’ve always believed that happiness is just around the corner. The trick is finding the right corner. Not long into our journey, Drew grew nervous. He pleaded with me to turn back, but I insisted we press on, propelled by an irresistible curiosity about what lay ahead. Danger Magic I needed to know, and to this day I’m convinced I would have reached wherever it was I was trying to reach had the Baltimore County Police not concluded, impulsively I thought at the time, that the shoulder of a major thoroughfare was no place for a couple of five-year-olds. Some people acquire the travel bug. Others are born with it. My affliction, if that’s what it is, went into remission for many years following my aborted expedition with Drew. It resurfaced after college with renewed fury. I desperately
Page 2 and 3: Copyright © 2008 by Eric Weiner Al
Page 4 and 5: Acknowledgments About the Author
Page 8 and 9: wanted to see the world, preferably
Page 10 and 11: deeply ingrained as to be self-evid
Page 12 and 13: It is a fact of human nature that w
Page 14 and 15: exactly. I am engaged in what the F
Page 16 and 17: not on parchment but on hard drives
Page 18 and 19: esults Were its citizens happy Veen
Page 20 and 21: instinctively that the best way to
Page 22 and 23: answers are remarkably accurate.
Page 24 and 25: happy’ one has no right to ignore
Page 26 and 27: egins All cultures have a word for
Page 28 and 29: “My colleagues are not amused,”
Page 30 and 31: latitudes of happiness. Happy count
Page 32 and 33: that one country scores consistentl
Page 34 and 35: Inside, there’s a foosball table
Page 36 and 37: settles into my cerebral cortex, I
Page 38 and 39: area. How about that, I think, swiv
Page 40 and 41: Freedom even. Freedom from what I c
Page 42 and 43: the next two days stopping in every
Page 44 and 45: endear her to Geneva’s diplomatic
Page 46 and 47: too. I take an informal poll around
Page 48 and 49: have a four-thousand-dollar espress
Page 50 and 51: you can’t mow you lawn or shake y
Page 52 and 53: energy, while flatlanders know only
Page 54 and 55: the valley below. I read another si
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ties—these are all major contribu
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ather, how many people you know wit
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A graphic designer. Living in the s
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the kind of thought I’m constantl
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Then there is something called anan
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fifty flavors. The Swiss were on th
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advances have come through war.”
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Something more than mere contentmen
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this flight. For a long while I see
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to reach us and clamber aboard we s
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efore. Amazing things.” The Airbu
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Bhutanese handshake and, come to th
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In this part of the world, For Some
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sign, propped up by two pieces of w
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Sangay Ngedup, a former prime minis
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cop with an actual traffic light, b
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the police are worried. They know t
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he speaks. He thinks as he speaks a
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Then I decide to do something out o
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“Rich people in the west, they ha
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has gotten to me. What the heck, I
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Tashi and I decide to visit the wee
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Tibetan government in exile. “It
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to be purified.” In other words,
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this is not necessarily a bad thing
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about happiness constantly. In Bhut
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eveals that money does indeed buy h
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society, one where we are supposedl
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cause, perhaps, but still a cause.
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yucking it up for the cameras at a
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Rinpoche, eyes closed tightly, chan
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endless switchbacks. I find this me
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high. I meet the abbot, a rotund ma
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A dozen or so creatures with white
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out of the Toyota. “Sir,” asks
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“No,” she says, as if I were a
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missing.” I tell her that of the
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elationships, and people in the wes
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confesses that not all of his guest
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Oprah. But okay is a start, and for
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profligate ways with interest. Mayb
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wood trim when it’s time to get o
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happiness. We equate happiness with
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I’m sitting in the lobby, staring
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ehind the wheel of a car and they b
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skinned, they drive taxis and don
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doesn’t work. We take our baggage
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of suspended aviation. Always comin
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enough, the temple was built in the
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journalistic instincts, honed over
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desert. It’s not such a far-fetch
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across from the emir, looking uncom
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museum. I’ve seen it on the map.
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Street Urchin Era. She acts crazy.
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Qatar is free. So is electricity an
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pockets. Since the dishdashas are g
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delusional, dogmatic religion makes
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prostitution and now this. The Dutc
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luck (and likewise of the opposite
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says it like it is fact. The earth
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and that is much harder to rectify.
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like a well-designed appendage, and
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eliminated a negative externality,
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woman. I had met her once before. I
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happiness. My great-grandmother was
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He arrives a few minutes later. His
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you depend on them. This multicultu
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paucity of selection here. A few Am
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trace of envy, that I hoped life wa
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my palm perfectly, the way it glide
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“The sun Oh, I don’t think you
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sunny and eighty degrees. Always. O
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instantly reminded of a sunburned p
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she is speaking to me. “Can you t
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“So, why do Icelanders drink so m
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I’ve finished my third cup of cof
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In Iceland, the reverse is true. If
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food. Traditionally, Icelanders won
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inflicts an especially nasty hangov
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that you might become.” We tend t
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think—about the connection betwee
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can possess a momentum of their own
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The ground is, quite literally, shi
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underwear. I am shocked. Not by the
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This relative lack of envy is one s
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of self-delusion, it turns out, is
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wasn’t my imagination. That was J
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work. A solid B, perhaps even a B-p
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around the boulder and, sure enough
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headed god, pouring spoonfuls of mi
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alone pronounce—is the head of th
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in the creative process, the musica
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not what we believe that makes us h
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teach me this life lesson. I’m si
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he tells me, dipping a pita wedge i
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it. He learned to speak Icelandic,
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Social scientists have been investi
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cool is that You get that ahead-of-
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all its drunken splendor. I head to
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cigar in hand and looking vaguely l
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Yes, I need to travel to the dark s
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us terminal than an international g
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out rooms or something else We clim
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educed to scrimping for food and re
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the Russian empire collapsed, the M
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Russian writer, who lived here for
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how she is. “Feevty-feevty,” sh
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Until the next bomb. Vitalie declar
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either. Qatar, however, is a fabulo
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can jump the queue. “It’s very
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That might explain the guy in Cleve
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The Moldovans have amassed a repert
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gets out of the cauldron the others
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screen TV—except for me, and I pr
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The official mission of the U.S. Pe
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It’s warm, and the countryside is
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Corps. Joanna had asked to be sent
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The happiness research backs her up
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jars. Sometimes we bicker, which is
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speaks to her in Moldovan. The wait
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ut only 10 percent of the people ca
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Yes, it’s time to leave this none
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kindness, no space for what St. Aug
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and has a wild, unruly beard. Nick
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In Bangkok, apocryphal stories abou
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continuously. It’s really quite a
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unning tally in her head. She knows
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desirable. The geographer Yi-Fu Tua
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stretches as far as the eye can see
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fulsomely that it extended onto Kun
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inventive buildings, such as the Ro
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pleased to see is labeled “Made i
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don’t smile. Here, they smile, an
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Thailand stretches back many centur
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She makes it sound so easy, like ex
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street vendors to stockbrokers. Wha
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convulse wildly. She is channeling
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“How could she possibly know thos
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The airport terminal is deserted. I
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A couple of years ago, an unusual e
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“In the UK” “Um, yes.” Clea
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UK, we don’t want to bother anyon
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grad student intervenes on my behal
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These days, talk of happiness is po
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Come friendly bombs and fall on Slo
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him back. Click. Another episode. O
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They’d been kicked in the backsid
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downright alarmed. They recoil in h
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divorce can attest. I stroll down H
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I wasn’t quite sure how to handle
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Dump.’ ” You have to say one th
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nervous at the same time. Kate Fox
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Even in the inebriated atmosphere o
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told me this on the phone, I smiled
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forward to Monday morning. Heather
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nothing else, their sheer staying p
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and being grateful for five things
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Chat with someone who is down. Appr
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night. So what was it: toothpaste o
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California brush fire. So what to d
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different spiritual latitude.” Ye
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Every time I return to India—abou
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exceptionally peaceful places but o
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the research backs them up. People
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ashram officials, an edge of panic
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enough that Guru-ji is on to someth
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your spiritual development and not
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deep sleep and won’t wake. The se
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I have to be honest: All this guru
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“Did you really greet them, or wa
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This is a big one, the big one, and
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That was not the case, though, with
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much that his friends joke that he
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“It’s too boring,” says Viki.
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The flight from London was a nightm
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I’m introduced to Chandra, a roly
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“I’m a five, not a four. I thin
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meeting friends, sipping the ginger
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where, as Mark Twain observed, ever
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Family. Friends. I would go a step
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My flight leaves soon. I have time
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“One Shanti Road is the happiest
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ather, that Craig, not a convention
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Miami is associated with happiness,
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Clearly, one dynamic at work is ris
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oth our discontent and our belief i
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wildfires, to name a few. “Nothin
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is so down on Miami. It’s been fi
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eating sushi. “I can eat a lot of
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mountains, so close and embracing.
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five-minute drive from her house an
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My search is over. I’ve logged te
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his head. All miserable countries a
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environment. Out there. In here. No
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all. Waterford, Virginia, July 2007
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foreign desk for their support and
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About the Author Eric Weiner spent
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The Geography of Bliss

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