According to the 2026 World Happiness Report, South Africa is ranked 101st out of 147 countries. Even Mozambicans allegedly find more joy in their lives.
For the past two decades, the economists and researchers who compile the World Happiness Index (published by the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre in partnership with Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network) have refined their scope to a few variables that account for how respondents rate their levels of jolliness.
It is necessary to pause here and consider the fallibility of statistics. For the purposes of this annual report, barely a thousand people are surveyed in each country. It might be that the Finnish participants were caught during a good breeding season for reindeer, which would account for Finland’s position at the very top of the global cheerfulness chart. (This makes even more sense if most of those surveyed were from the far northern reaches of Finland, where reindeer outnumber human inhabitants by 15%. Who wouldn’t be happy surrounded by herds of prancers and dancers?)
In South Africa, a thousand people equate to roughly the number of voters who support both the eradication of private health care and the introduction of e-tolls. Or the number of people who don’t find Trevor Noah funny.
With that caveat, let us allow for the extrapolation of this limited data to the general population. It does raise some interesting observations. Some have said that in South Africa, being unhappy is just another Thursday. But although the report says we have a life evaluation score of 5.009, putting us on the bottom half of the “whistle while you wait for work” ladder, we score a lot higher on the purely emotional matrix.
The life evaluation score is a measure of how individuals assess their current overall life, calculated using the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale, more commonly known as the Cantril Ladder. This measures factors such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and trust in institutions (as in low corruption, which might go some way towards explaining South Africa’s dismal score).
“Generosity” in this context means the amount of time, money or effort respondents donate to helping strangers. People who give, according to this poll, are happier than those who don’t.
The index claims to reflect subjective wellbeing by trying to assess our attitudes to life as a whole rather than as a measure of our daily emotional ups and downs. In other words, it looks at how people think about their lives rather than how they feel about their lives.
This is an important distinction that might explain the anomaly in South Africa’s scores. We rate significantly higher in terms of positive emotions. When it comes to resilience in the face of hardship, South Africans punch way above our weight. We like to laugh, we love to smile, and we find a lot of things funny even while bemoaning their tragedy. We might think life is hopeless but we don’t believe in taking it too seriously.
So, what is the secret to happiness in a place that has potholes deeper than our credit limits, a wealth gap wider than our internet bandwidth, a collective parody of politicians and a penchant for national drama? It might be useful to ask the people who didn’t have rising fuel costs and unsynchronised traffic lights to blame: the ancient philosophers, who were quite adept at dealing with existential dread.
Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not
— Epictetus
“Happiness depends upon ourselves” — Aristotle, who wrote around 300BCE, argued that happiness is a personal responsibility, an “inward power of the soul”. It’s not something that is doled out by the government or comes with winning the Women’s Cricket World Cup (though that might help for a week or so — go, ladies!). It is an inside job.
If the power goes off — which Eskom says is unlikely to happen quite as much this winter, yay — you have a choice. You can tweet furiously (sorry, X furiously) about the unlit cabinet, or you can light a candle and enjoy the silence. Also, you can enjoy not being able to connect to social media and therefore set aside for a while the infuriating question about what the verb should be that was previously “tweet”.
Aristotle, were he writing in contemporary jargon, would probably have been a proponent of the “It is what it is” philosophy.
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all in yourself, in your way of thinking” — Marcus Aurelius. The Roman emperor and philosopher believed that we get in the way of our own happiness by never being satisfied, always wanting more, and not noticing or appreciating what we have right here, right now.
If you stop expecting broken water pipes to be fixed or the correct dockets to appear for fair trials on the appointed court dates, you stop being disappointed. Happiness can perhaps be increased by reducing our expectations and demands for what we think life owes us, but Marcus Aurelius also suggested it is a product of our minds: “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly.” Makes sense, if you think about it — surely it is easier for a person to change their own thoughts than to think they can control the Strait of Hormuz.
“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not” — Epictetus. The stoic philosopher had a similar outlook. He also said: “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”
Accepting fate doesn’t mean not getting smartly out of the way when you’re about to be run over by a taxi on the pavement. It means not spending sleepless nights tortured by events over which you have no control whatsoever. And which might not happen anyway.
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.” Epicurus believed that we find tranquillity by freeing ourselves from fear, and that joy comes from appreciating the simple things. A smile from a stranger, the morning sun sparking rainbows off the puddles gathered in potholes after a week of rain, a gathering of friends, a good potjie, a glorious sunset, the shared laughter at a uniquely South African story.
The 2026 World Happiness Report shows that we are very good at coping. “Ubuntu” is a misused and overused term, but it really does exist. Though there may be glaring exceptions, by and large we South Africans demonstrate extraordinary community spirit. Our positive emotions are high and our social support networks are strong. We are a nation that (mostly) turns anger into dancing and finds humour in the face of despair.
To conclude, we might be 101st on a statistically questionable report, but South Africans know that happiness isn’t just about having the highest GDP or the fastest internet. It’s about the people you share your life with, the ability to laugh at the absurd and the resilience to keep going.
Aristotle also said: “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” So stop fretting about what you can’t control, because this too shall pass, as it always does. Braai that mielie, dance at the traffic light and share a joke with the car guard. These things won’t fix all our problems, but they may well be the places where our happiness lives and grows.
Tips to lift the spirit
There are literally millions of books, videos, podcasts, courses and coaches claiming to teach the secrets of true happiness. Trying to find and follow them all would allow no time for actual living. Here are just four simple steps for South Africans.
Master the ‘shame’
Our ability to use the word “shame” to mean “Oh, that’s cute”, “Oh, that’s terrible”, and “Oh, my heart!” is a form of emotional intelligence that philosophers would admire. It allows us to process complex emotions in one syllable.
Leverage the power of the braai
The 2026 report suggests that social connectivity is a significant driver of joy. The braai is not just a cooking method; it is a spiritual practice of bonding, perhaps the ultimate community activity.
Embrace the chaos
As a wag once noted on Facebook, you know you’re in South Africa when you see police cars with gear locks. Accepting that life is a bit mad allows you to stop trying to control it. There’s no point. You can’t.
The shutdown technique
When December hits — or any long weekend, for that matter — the formally employed sector of South Africa takes a collective deep breath and refuses to work. This forced, countrywide holiday is what the ancient Greeks meant by eudaimonia (a state of good spirit or flourishing). Provided you have a job from which to take a holiday, that is.
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