View from the North 40: In pursuit of the meatballs of happiness

I respectfully submit this column to my current employer as a tentative notice of my possible eminent resignation should my application for a job in Denmark as a happiness investigator pan out.

Ikea, the assemble-it-yourself furniture and other-home-stuff company based in northern Europe, is working on a promotions gig in its Denmark branch. Specifically, they want to fill the full-time, temporary position of “happiness hunter.”

It’s a two-week, all-travel-expense-paid trip to Copenhagen, Denmark, where the successful applicant will stay in an Ikea-furnished home and be taken around on guided tours and to social engagements, which they will have to photograph and write about for an Ikea blog.

The position is paid in part with free food, as in all-you-can-eat meatballs, which immediately raises my personal happiness quotient — even though I was a bit confused about the meatballs. Apparently, though, meatballs and mashed potatoes are an Ikea foods specialty. Whatever, I’m on board, especially since they’re also paying two weeks of standard Danish wages.

Interesting, but why Denmark, you might be asking — because it does seem weirdly specific like the free meatballs.

“We know that Danes have a strong emotional connection to their homes, which they perceive as a safe space for wellness and ‘hygge,’” Ikea Denmark’s representative Leena Gaarde said in a statement printed in House Beautiful magazine. “In our large ‘Life at Home’ study in 2017, we asked more than 20,000 people from 22 different countries about their feelings for their home, and nine out of 10 Danes said that they feel peace and happiness when they think about their homes. That led us to think whether happiness in reality arises from the Danes’ authentic life at home.”

Once I got past the insult about how Gaarde said the Danes are happier because they live an “authentic life at home,” implying that everyone else, myself included, lives some kind of a lie at home, I could focus on the important part of her statement: What is this “hygge” thing? Right?

The Danes as a whole are totally into hygge, which is pronounced “hew-guh” (not “hydge” like it’s spelled, but I digress). Hygge is a quality of coziness and comfortable charm that creates a sense of contentment or well-being, also known as happiness. It is, apparently, Denmark’s national sentiment. It’s their cultural thing.

After I read, that I was, like, “I gotta go check out these freaks.” Seriously, the whole country is, or strives to be, and reveres happiness? This I gotta see.

Besides, how hard is a job referred to as a “happiness hunter” going to be if everyone is happy?

I’ll stop anyone on the street and ask, “How do you feel?” They’ll say, “Happy.” And I’ll take a photo and write, “Found some.” And the next person: “What are you doing? Oh, you’re being happy. How interesting. Here, let me post a photo of that on my blog.” Got it. “Excuse me, miss, what are your plans today? To pursue happiness, yes, of course. What a very photographable moment for me to write about on this handy Ikea blog.”

Proof of happy Danes? Nailed it.

How hard could this job be? Bring me more meatballs, suckers.

——

I don’t actually have the job yet, so this is more like a sort of “save the date” type of resignations that may or may not be canceled upon the announcement of the job winner at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40/.