IF YOU LOSE YOUR WALLET, DO YOU EXPECT IT TO BE RETURNED? Here’s some good news from the 2025 World Happiness Report: “People are too pessimistic about the kindness of their communities.” As usual, the 2025 World Happiness Report offered insights to the countries where citizens are happiest. Once again, Nordic nations dominated. The United States landed in 24th place. The countries where the happiest people live are: - 1) Finland,
- 2) Denmark,
- 3) Iceland,
- 4) Sweden, and
- 5) Netherlands.
Where are people most benevolent? The 2025 report also tracked a trend that surprised researchers during the Covid-19 years. In 2020, there was an upsurge in benevolent acts – people doing kind things for one another. Researchers theorized that helping others may have “…offset the negative effects felt by many of those whose lives were changed, endangered, and sometimes harmed during the pandemic.” For the 2025 report, researchers asked how often people performed acts of kindness, specifically donating, volunteering, and helping strangers. The most benevolent countries varied, depending on the type of kindness. - - For donations, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Ukraine ranked first, second, and third.
- - For volunteering, Indonesia, Liberia, and Kenya took top honors.
- - For helping strangers, Jamaica, Liberia, and Trinidad & Tobago were the leaders.
The United States was 12th for donations, 15th for volunteering, and 12th for helping a stranger. What about lost wallets? The study also asked participants how likely it was that a lost wallet would be returned. They compared the data to studies where researchers “lose” wallets to see how often they are returned. Overall, expectations that wallets would be returned were far lower than actual returns. For example, the actual return rate for lost wallets was 1.8 times higher – almost double – the average estimated return rate. In addition, wallets were more likely to be returned if they contained money. By the way, the best place to lose your wallet is in a Nordic nation. These countries had both the highest expected and the highest actual rate of return for lost wallets. Weekly Focus – Think About It “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” –Aesop, Storyteller |