Venezuelans and Suicide

My article on happiness last week generated all kinds of comments: political ones, crediting their happiness to the government or to the opposition; emotional ones; analytical ones, among others. One of the analytical comments pointed out that the countries at the top of the list of the happiest countries in the world are the countries with the highest suicide rates.

This paradoxical situation is a real fact that specialists have been analyzing for some time. A study by researchers at the University of Warwick in England, Hamilton College and the University of San Francisco shows that European countries such as Denmark, Iceland, Ireland and Switzerland, and others in the Americas such as Canada and the United States (all considered among the happiest in the world), are also the countries where the most suicides occur.

And now listen to this, which might seem unheard-of to us Venezuelans: according to the authors of the study, “the happiness level of others would be a risk factor for suicide, because discontented people who live in places where everyone else is happy tend to judge their own well-being in comparison with that of the people around them.” What do you think of that? I was once told that one of the greatest worries of some Europeans was choosing a vacation spot where the neighbor hadn’t been. Just like here, right?!

Professor Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick, who led the research, explains that the origin of this paradox might be the following: “Discontented people may feel particularly harshly treated by life in a happy place. These contrasts may increase the risk of suicide. If humans are subject to mood swings, comparisons with others may make our existence more bearable in an environment where others are thoroughly unhappy.” But how can anyone be “fed up with life in happy places”? We Venezuelans don’t understand that at all, because we may get fed up with our problems, but never with our own happiness or anyone else’s. What we want is for ALL of us to be super happy, period! Now do you see why we Venezuelans have a low suicide rate?

And now I come back once more to the advantage we Venezuelans have in being family-minded, friendly and so on, and in living with others in mind. One of the emails I received, from Brazil, said: “I’ve been here eight months for work and I can’t adapt. The other afternoon my son was invited to play with a friend, and I sent along a cake for the family to share. When I went to pick him up, my son came back with the cake, and the family sent word that they were returning it because they didn’t like it. At that moment, what I wanted was to grab a rocket and get back to Venezuela as fast as possible.”

Here in Venezuela, when a little friend shows up at the house with a cake, our joy is Total!!! And when the mother comes to pick him up, we invite her in and offer her some little arepas, which always get us out of a jam. And we enjoy the cake whether it’s banana, sweet corn, squash, or anything at all!!!! Because to us EVERYTHING tastes Delicious and Wonderful, and we enjoy it to the fullest (maybe because it’s so hard for us to get anything). Best of all, we are happy if our fellow Venezuelans are happy, because that way we share our joys together in the midst of so many problems.

I would add two other pieces of Venezuelan common sense to the suicide studies. Here, for example, it is hard to take your own life because we are never alone (sometimes several families live together), so if you feel depressed or ill, you have plenty of people visiting you and keeping you company. And another thing: here we don’t mind unburdening ourselves to anyone and telling them all our problems. That is good, too, because it lets us drain off our anxieties and worries so we can keep going in the daily struggle.

Conclusion: the pride of being Venezuelan has a reason behind it. It is not an invention or blind patriotism! We are a great people, in spite of everything. So let us keep praying and fighting happily, for ourselves and for others, in good spirits, because good times are coming for EVERYONE, God and the Virgin willing.

And as Brother Ginés used to tell us: “Onward and upward, even when the slope is steep and sometimes Slipperyyyyy!!!!!”