ShareThisSometimes we need reassurance that conventional wisdom is more often on the mark than not.
A Gallup-Healthways survey into Americans' sense of happiness and well-being found that people who live in places most of us think of as vacation destinations are the happiest and most satisfied. Utah was first, Hawaii second, Wyoming third.
And people living in states often synonymous with hard times ranked last, with West Virginia ranking 50th, Kentucky 49th and Mississippi 48th.
Taller people are more satisfied with their lives. But the big determinant of happiness and well-being -- talk about conventional wisdom -- is money. Even just living close to it seems to help. The survey found that people living in the wealthiest congressional districts felt better off than those living in the hard scrabble coal country of eastern Kentucky or the forbidding urban environment of the South Bronx -- the two districts that finished lowest.
And then there's this finding: Americans felt a lot happier and better off before the financial meltdown than after.
Who knew?
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
