Happiness to me is a relative term. Some people are perfectly content living with the bare minimum they need to get by, while others prefer having "things" (cars, big houses, gadgets, etc.) that make them happy, and either way is fine. There's no right or wrong answer. Happiness is whatever you define it to be for you. With that said, no one is happy all the time. There are and always will be days when things don't go how you want them to, or something you didn't see coming happens, and it just brings you down. Apparently, those days are almost every day in Kentucky according to a new study ranking the Bluegrass State as one of the unhappiest in America.

Kentucky Ranked as One of America's Unhappiest States

Scholaroo, a company that helps college students find and acquire scholarship opportunities, recently published a study where they collected data from the following seven categories to determine which states in the country were the happiest

  • Employment
  • Leisure Activities
  • Mental Health
  • Personal Finance
  • Personal Relationships
  • Physical Health
  • Social Policies
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Each category was broken down into sub-categories such as the number of weekly work hours, quit rate, depression and anxiety rates, divorce rate, participation in various leisure activities, and more for a total of 54 key metrics, each of which was assigned a point value. States with higher scores were obviously considered "happier," while the lower-scoring states, like Kentucky, were considered "unhappy."

After the numbers were crunched, Kentucky landed at number 47 on the happiness scale making it the fourth unhappiest state. The biggest knocks contributing to the low ranking came in the categories of Leisure Activities where it ranked 44th, Mental Health where it ranked 47th, and Physical Health where it ranked 49th.

How Surrounding States Ranked

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Residents in Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia aren't much happier based on the rankings. Ohio ranked 38th, Indiana 39th, Tennessee 43rd, and West Virginia came in dead last at number 50, so at least you don't live there. That's something you can be happy about, right?

You can take a deeper into the study on Scholaroo's website.

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And, if you need a few reasons as to why Kentucky is a great place to live regardless of what these numbers say, check out a few things you'll only find in Kentucky, along with a few fun facts about your home state below.

[Source: Scholaroo]

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