My theme for the week is how other cultures and countries approach wellness. This is in relation to my essential question: what is wellness and how can I maximize the wellness of myself and others? I have started off this week by reading articles with rankings of countries on happiness, health, wellbeing and prosperity. My goal going into this week was to learn something from different wellness practices that may not be a part of the mainstream U.S. culture/trend of wellness. However, I have mostly examined how each country compares to the next in terms of diet, healthcare systems, exercise and general quality of life/feeling of fulfillment. It is interesting to see how one country, such as Finland, can be at the top of the happiness index but be low on the prosperity index because of categories such as economic development or such. Slight differences like these made me question – how can you even measure the ‘happiness’ or prosperity of a nation when the qualifications are so different and the diversity in quality of life is so vast across a country? Another particularly striking find was how European countries are consistently at the top of these happiest/best wellness lists. There are important factors that contribute to this such as good healthcare systems, support, empowerment of citizens, low crime rates and good natural environments. However, I think it is also important to consider that many of these Nordic/European countries that consistently place high on the indexes lack the diversity of a country such as the U.S. When addressing quality of life in the U.S., officials have to deal with a lot more issues such as wide scale racism, income inequality and more. Another though I had after reading so many articles was if I were to move to any one of these countries that has been labelled as the ‘happiest’ how would my experience change? I am already living a pretty happy and privileged life so would it remain similar, would I feel less happy because I would have to adjust my community/social support, or would things like a natural environment completely change my mood? Overall, while a country one lives in can greatly change the opportunity to become fulfilled, there are so many other factors that contribute to happiness and health that should not be disregarded. It was inspiring to read about the practices in each of these countries and understand how I can implement changes into my lifestyle to become happier, even if I am not living in the ‘happiest country on earth’. Finally, these articles instilled a sense of gratitude in me in that I have the opportunity to become happier and healthier where I am today.