Every March, the world finds out who is happiest. The World Happiness Report, produced by Oxford University's Wellbeing Research Centre with Gallup and the United Nations, asks people in 147 countries to picture a ladder, with the best possible life on the top rung and the worst on the bottom, and to say where they stand. In 2026, Finland came first for the ninth year in a row, with Iceland, Denmark, Costa Rica and Sweden close behind. The United Kingdom finished 29th, and for the second year running, no English-speaking country made the top ten.

Of course, a score on a ladder is not the same as a smile. Happiness is hard to define, and harder to measure, because it means different things to different people. For one person it is a quiet evening, for another it is the thrill of winning, for a third it is simply the absence of worry. Critics point out that the Finns themselves are famously reserved and would be the first to say they are merely "fairly satisfied". Perhaps what the ladder really captures is not joy but security: good healthcare, trust in neighbours and a sense that life is fair.

If there is one answer that keeps coming back, it is a surprisingly simple one. In 1938, researchers at Harvard began following 724 young men, asking about their jobs, health and marriages every few years. Decades later, the study had grown to include their families and became the longest scientific study of adult life ever made. Its director, Robert Waldinger, sums up the main finding in one sentence: good relationships keep us happier and healthier, and help us to live longer. Not wealth, not fame, and not even a high-flying career.

That may sound like a greeting-card message, but it takes a certain courage to act on it. We spend years chasing promotions and bigger houses, while the thing most likely to make us happy is a phone call to an old friend or a long dinner with the family. The research leaves us with an uncomfortable question: if we already know what makes us happy, why do we keep looking for it somewhere else?