"Ambition" is probably a less useful frame, in the article and in the comments, than "expectations." I've only been to Denmark a few times but I think the feel

"Ambition" is probably a less useful frame, in the article and in the comments, than "expectations." I've only been to Denmark a few times but I think the feeling I got is that they are happier because they have managed to largely sidestep the otherwise ubiquitous trap of perpetually escalating expectations. The American/capitalist model is that each achieved goal is a platform for the next goal. Growth is what matters. Being satisfied with a decent job and a peaceful context in which to love your family is not any less ambitious than desiring to get rich or "change the world." It's just ambitious in a different direction. Americans, for example, optimize for economic performance. Danes, I think, optimize for happiness. The tantalizing, troublesome idea that captivates me as an American is that money as an abstraction of 'value,' when survival is assumed, might only be desirable as a tool for being happier. And if the pursuit of money, on a societal level, interrupts the pursuit of happiness, that implies that we capitalists are doing it wrong.