On March 20, the United Nations celebrated its third annual International Day of Happiness.
The UN created the holiday to include happiness as an indicator （指标）as to how we are succeeding as a global community.
In 2012, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, said that for too long the world has used Gross National Product (GNP) to measure the well-being of a country's population. In other words, the amount of money people made. Money certainly does help a country's and a person's well-being（康乐，安宁）. But it is not the only factor.
If you live in Latin America, chances are you are happy, according to Gallup's（美国新墨西哥州城市名） "Positive Experience Index（指数）." This Gallup index found that day-to-day people in Latin America are some of the happiest people on the planet.
In fact, for the first time in Gallup's 10-year history of global tracking of happiness, all of the top 10 countries with the highest "Positive Experience Index" scores are in Latin America.
Gallup representatives asked adults in 143 countries the following questions: "Did you feel well-rested yesterday?" "Were you treated with respect all day yesterday? "Did you smile or laugh a lot?" "Did you learn or do something interesting?"
They collected the "yes" responses from these questions into what they call a "Positive Experience Index" score for each country. The index score for the world in 2014 is 71. This number has remained steady through the years. More than 70% of people worldwide said they had fun, smiled or laughed a lot, felt well rested and respected.
Gallup's happiness poll （民意检测）also found that having money is not necessarily the key to happiness. Guatemala （危地马拉）is one of the poorest countries in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but ties for second when it comes to positive emotions.
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