this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024

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I've lived in the Netherlands for 14 years—why we're always ranked one of the world's happiest countries (www.cnbc.com)

submitted 11 months ago by MicroWave to c/worldnews

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I was born in Poland and grew up in Germany, but my family and I have been living in the Netherlands for the last 14 years.

When I first discovered the concept of "niksen," or the Dutch art of doing nothing, I was fascinated. I even wrote a book about it. When I applied it to my own life, my perspective about happiness shifted in a significant way.

I believe niksen is one of the reasons why the Dutch are consistently ranked as some of the happiest people in the world. Niksen might seem selfish or boring at first glance, but it's actually a service to you and your community.

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[–] toxicbubble 80 points 11 months ago (2 children)

living wage, social services, work life balance, drugs

[–] JimmyChanga 19 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Nah, must be the nicksen

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Seems like niksen is basically assuming all the other things are already in place. Gotta have all that other stuff before you can even think about having the time to "do nothing."

Edit: Either that or we're in yet another "it must be all the olive oil!" shams.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I knew you hippies would come around to me eventually… arooooo.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

And much much Better urban planning that's focused on people not on cars

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago

TIL another country has a name for how I like to live.

[–] TIMMAY 21 points 11 months ago (1 children)

this isnt even pretending to be news, this is an opinion piece. Come the fuck on

[–] RGB3x3 1 points 11 months ago

Is there a !worldopinion?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Niksen is the Dutch word for “doing nothing” (see idleness [german: Müßiggang]) and has been increasingly used since 2019 as a buzzword for a promoted relaxed lifestyle. The Niksen is comparable to the Dolcefarniente (Italy), kalsarikännit (Finland), Lagom (Sweden) and hygge (Denmark).

German Wiki

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

"Lagom" means "just enough", and has more to do with not taking more than you need, and I believe it being strongly correlated with the cultural "jante lagen" (="thou shall live and act as a humble human."). Niksen and lagom doesn't seem to have any similarities beyond that.

[–] Dasus 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Kalsarikännit is getting drunk alone at home.

A sign of alcoholism, so we Finns use humour to cope with it and talk about it jokingly. Like with suicide.

Equating that to hygge and lagom is just to simplify all of them to the point of almost complete reinterpretation.

However I don't disagree with what you're trying to convey, and those concepts may be tangentially related to a degree, but...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

Who the hell has time for niksen these days...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

in the US we have The Dude

[–] cosmicrookie 3 points 11 months ago

I am jealous of your "we". I'm half Greek and half danish and can't say we to any of them.

[–] moistclump 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Where’s hygge from because that shits also fire.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Scandinavia

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Denmark

[+] Paragone -19 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I've read that corporations who have their HQ's in The Netherlands .. are forced to get someone from some other country/culture, when searching for C-level people:

The Netherlands culture can't and won't be driven-enough to do the amount of work required: it isn't sensical, in that culture, to be driven, so.

Just as your body has different organs for different kinds of function, we need to have different cultures for different kinds of people.

Without bones, how happy would you be using your liver, kidneys, brain, etc, for scaffolding while trying to stand-up??

The same is true of drivenness.

There is a season for each kind, in Nature, there is a place for each kind, in Nature, and we'd do much better, if we deliberately accepted/respected that, in our global urban-planning.

( this doesn't say that gutting parenting, so as to have destitution-wages, to enforce attachment-disorder in the children, to produce in the next generation over 600 mass-shootings in the US in 2023, is somehow valid or proper or respectable, however.

Drivenness doesn't require sociopathy-psychopathy/narcissism's rule/dominion. )

_ /\ _

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago

I just wanted to downvote initially, but consider this:

a) your premise is wrong ("I read somewhere") b) if it were true that there's some innate tendency in Dutch people to not want to strive for anything, how do you explain their fairly advanced society? c) if it were true, they'd also not have a functioning government

your's isn't a good take

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

drivenness

You could have used "selfish" or "sociopathic" instead.