- What does Sri Lanka need to become a happier country?
By Nethmi Dissanayake
At present, it seems like we as a nation are deeply unhappy – the last three years have seen us take a severe beating, starting from the 2019 Easter attacks through to the pandemic and now, our worst economic crisis to date.
The UN’s most recent World Happiness Report ranks Sri Lanka 127th out of 156 – a few countries below Sri Lanka are Yemen, Haiti, and India, while Afghanistan is placed last. Finland has been named the world’s happiest country.
During the past two years, Sri Lanka was ranked 130 and 129 respectively, which makes our 2022 ranking an improvement – but how are people feeling on the ground? The Sunday Morning Brunch reached out to a few young professionals for their views.
‘Social capital is extremely important’
Quantity Surveyor Nilantha Gamage shared with Brunch that higher-income countries tended to score higher, but the differences in income did not explain all that much. “The state of health, both physical and mental, is also very important in explaining differences. But a third aspect that is important is the quality of society, sometimes called social capital. Social capital is extremely important in explaining the differences across countries in wellbeing,” Gamage said, noting that the answer to this lay in our answers to questions such as ‘Do we trust each other?’ ‘Do we have social support networks?’ and ‘Do we trust the government?’
“When a country’s social fabric is strong, feelings of wellbeing can grow because people work together to solve problems and appreciate the social support they have. On the other hand, if social institutions fail to meet the challenges of a crisis, individuals can become even unhappier, because they lose social trust. Greece was hard hit by the recession and was one of the countries that lost the most happiness between the two periods because its social institutions crumbled under the pressure,” Gamage said.
‘The only way to turn this ship around is by ending old-school politics’
Luxury boutique sector and events promoter Krishni Panditharatne shared that her take on Sri Lanka’s low ranking in the 2022 UN World Happiness Report had to do with the overall situation in the country. “From the quality of life being terrible for many, to watching our beautiful country go further and further down the drain, getting just a little worse every single day, there are many factors,” Panditharatne said, adding: “Half of us grew up with war, so we faced hardship. However, things weren’t a fraction as bad during the war. For the youngsters who were born in the last 20 years or so, all they have seen is the country plummeting. So really, they are not seeing many positives, but rather negatives. And this is on top of the fact that the youth in this country are severely lacking recreational activities, so their minds are becoming even more idle. They literally have no avenue to get anything positive into their lives and thus end up sad.”
Sharing her views on the most practical way forward, Panditharatne said: “The only way to turn this ship around and uplift the country is by ending old-school politics. Let young people in. We need more women in Parliament. We need diversity. With such diversity then we can start to steer the country out of this abyss we are in. We also need to update our laws. It is only when things start to improve that people will feel happy.”
‘This is the result of bad decisions and non-accountability by the people in power’
Sri Lankan Entrepreneur and SME Network (SLESN) Chief Visionary Officer and Co-Founder Udaya Wickramage explained that in his view, Sri Lanka’s general unhappiness was the result of inept governance. “Without sugarcoating it, this is the result of bad decisions and non-accountability by the people who are in power and who have taken the responsibility of guiding this nation forward. First we had to face the Easter bomb attacks, then this was followed by two years of the pandemic. As a result, people lost their loved ones and their jobs and were pushed to their limit. Somehow, people slowly started to get back up and we thought that we had left the bad times behind us.”
This didn’t prove to be the case, however, and addressing our current economic crisis, Wickramage said that this could have been avoided and mitigated by taking the right action at the right time. “It’s not rocket science to understand that people are unhappy and furious right now,” he said. “Everyone, except the extremely rich, is struggling to make ends meet. We have a shortage of gas, petrol, milk powder, and now even paper. Every day one more thing gets added to the list. On top of all of this, we have hours of power cuts. It has been kind of a detrimental road that we have been on and it leads to the people of this beautiful island being utterly miserable.”
Wickramage added: “I believe that it will take at least five years for us to bring the economy back to where it was in 2018. This is not something we can do overnight. And if we are to climb up on the Happiness Index, I think the Government needs to start by providing basic needs to people. Most importantly, the very first step that should be taken by the Government is accepting its faults, owning up to its mistakes, and then showing people a very clear and transparent roadmap of what’s going to happen. For example, ‘these are the sacrifices you will have to make and this is what we need to do to slowly come out of it’.”
As someone who works in tourism, Wickramage also spoke about the changes in attitude he saw in locals towards tourists because of the increase in scams we see on social media. “People are pushed to their limit and not everybody has the psychological capacity to withstand everything that has been thrown at them. We are still very much a hospitable country, that is in our genes. However, when we are oppressed so much, day in and day out, hospitality doesn’t become much of a priority. But people are still very friendly and try their best to provide tourists with a nice vacation. The issue is not the people. The issue is whether the foreigners will visit us knowing very well the current crisis of the country – there’s no power, if they are to dine in a restaurant, food items are not available. And, with social media, word travels fast. We have to stop pretending everything is okay. That’s when we can start fixing things.”
“Being a young entrepreneur and from my generation, I am worried. People are leaving the country, but you cannot blame them. Because if you are sad and miserable living here, would you choose to continue to suffer? No. We are losing amazing young talent who would have been assets to the country. I believe we will feel the repercussions of this in another 10 years’ time,” he added.
He concluded by saying that religion, ethnicity, and race should be put aside and we have to come together as a nation, as we have always done when in crisis, and solve this issue.
‘Prioritising your happiness is essential for your quality of life’
From a mental health perspective, counselling psychologist, personality development coach, and lecturer Rasini Bandara shared that being a collectivist country meant we had a lot of benefits but in line with our very culture, our characteristic of not being individualistic had also contributed to us feeling unhappy. Examples of this are how your friends’ family’s mental health affects you as well, and how, from a young age, Sri Lankans are constantly compared to other people. This brings negativity into people’s lives and skews their perception of happiness with the social perception of ‘happiness’ becoming the only definition of happiness.
“When it comes to the whole concept of mental health, currently there are a lot of people who do seek help and reach out for support,” Bandara said. “I think we can obtain a better position on the Index by giving the right kind of education to people. People should be given an opportunity to prioritise their mental wellbeing from a young age, and given time to work on themselves. At the same time, we must not try to fit everyone into one framework, because it snatches away someone’s individualism and their voice. We should take away the tunnel vision we exercise on people.”
Bandara also shared that with everything happening around us, people were still trying their best to find some light and hope, and it showed our resilience as a nation. “We should focus on building and polishing these human skills in individuals and at the same time, advocating the fact that prioritising your happiness is essential for your quality of life. You cannot expect the world to change, and politicians to change, if you don’t bring the change within.”
Despite being classified as a lower-middle-income country, Sri Lanka is one of the world’s top 10 most charitable countries, proving that one does not need to be wealthy to be generous. “Sri Lanka’s overall level of giving was 51%. Sri Lanka had the highest rate of volunteering in the world at 46%. Of those surveyed, 50% of respondents reported donating to a charity and 55% reported helping strangers,” reports the World Population Review 2022.
Even in this time of crisis, there is an unfailing warmth and hospitality in the Sri Lankan people. Beneath this warmth lies resilience. It is this resilience that will carry us, the people of Sri Lanka, forward, so that we can get back to our normal lives, complaining about traffic and ‘what the new generation has done to this country’ over a steaming cup of tea while reading the newspaper and the only thing disturbing the peace and quiet will be your mother complaining from the living room and the noise of the ceiling fan.