Add The California Post on Google We’re number … 24! Hooray.
That’s where California landed on the latest ranking of happiness by state. Solidly in the middle of the pack.
We’re not the worst, or unhappiest. Louisiana is the unhappiest state in America. (Mardi Gras is only once a year, after all.)
But California fell decidedly out of the top 20. And with our magnificent weather, spectacular scenery and economic opportunity, we really should be No. 1, instead of landlocked Utah.
The study, conducted by the Manhattan Mental Health Counseling, considered several different factors.
Our state suffers from what the study calls poor “work-life balance.”
It’s so expensive to live here that people work themselves ragged just trying to afford it.
Think about what working life in California demands. You have to wake up absurdly early to beat traffic to get to work on time. Public transportation is not an option, because it doesn’t go anywhere near anything.
You spend a fortune on gas, not just because there’s a war, but because the people who govern this place have decided that green posturing is more important than saving you $2 per gallon.
If you walk your kids to school, you end up stepping over homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk, or tiptoeing past homeless encampments run by gangsters and drug dealers.
Your rent is so high that you have to earn at least $50 an hour, and maybe upward of $80 an hour, just to afford a basic apartment.
You have probably given up on owning your own home. And if you do manage to buy a home, good luck finding insurance you can afford. Especially when there are so many wildfires, and so little water available.
Well, at least they can’t ruin the beach, right?
Wrong. This week alone, beaches are closed up and down the coast due to high bacteria levels.
And don’t ask people in San Diego about the beach. The sewage from Tijuana has brought an early end to summer.
Yes, California has the world’s fourth-largest economy. It’s a great place to raise kids — if you can keep them out of public schools.
The people are beautiful — that never changes.
The people running this place seem determined to achieve some kind of utopia. The harder they try to force perfection, the farther away it seems.
