A bunch of things make us happy to be living in Indonesia, such as martabak, the country’s pristine beaches, and, of course, its beautiful and kind people.

According to a recent survey by Gallup International Association, that happiness seems to be shared by the majority of Indonesians, as Indonesia was ranked the 8th happiest country in the world in 2017, ahead of India, Argentina, and the Netherlands but some ways behind the happiest country in the world, Fiji.

The rankings were based on the happiness net scores for respondents’ answers to the question, “in general, do you personally feel very happy, happy, neither happy nor unhappy, unhappy or very unhappy about your life?” In Indonesia, 73% said they were happy, 9% said they were unhappy, while 22% were “neutrals,” resulting in a net score of +68 (considerably higher than the global net score of +48).

On an even more hopeful note, Indonesians ranked first in the world in terms of general optimism for the year 2018. We are also third in terms of economic optimism for this year, a result that is in line with previous surveys showing that Indonesians have the highest levels of confidence in government despite high levels of systemic corruption, endless graft scandals and inefficient bureaucracy .

Just under 54,000 people from 55 countries were quizzed between October and December for the survey. The results for Indonesia were based on a sample size of 1,026 people who responded to an online survey.

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