Message from pollsters and the pope: Get happy!

In an odd trio, Pope Francis and the Gallup research organization recently supported the late J.R.R. Tolkien's wise words, "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

The timeless conversation over whether money brings happiness was just given a papal-statistical one-two punch.

If you worry too much about money, the obvious answer is . . . don't.

Gallup recently published its "2014 Country Well-Being Rankings." The study polled about 146,000 people from 145 countries, asking them whether they feel they "thrive" in life's aspects such as purpose, social, financial, community and physical. While not a scientific survey, the results are still telling.

The United States ranked 12th in 2013, but dropped to 23rd last year -- just behind Israel. One key finding was that for Americans, the peak happiness was reached when people made $75,000 annually. Happiness did not climb much higher for people earning more than that. This does not completely prove Tolkien's suggestion, but it does little to support the sentiment that money leads to happiness, one held by many Americans.

So what is the pope's prescription, and what did Gallup find in the happiest countries? Well, if Tolkien says it's food, cheer and song, the one thing that is heavily involved in eating, cheering and singing is other people. If not the main ingredient, a sense of community seems to be extremely important.

For Pope Francis, that comes in the form of family, what he called the best "social capital."

"The family is the nearest hospital, the first school for the young, the best home for the elderly," he said Monday in Ecuador.

In perfect timing for the pope's visit, Gallup found that Latin American countries took five of the top six spots in the well-being rankings. Panama came in first for the second year in a row. Dan Witters, research director of Gallup-Healthways (the statistical-medical company duo), said that besides just being naturally optimistic people, Latin Americans are "more likely to contribute to the success of their organizations and communities."

Further supporting this guide to well-being is a Norwegian study from 2012 that found that cultural participation "was significantly associated with good health, good satisfaction with life, low anxiety and depression."

In his 2000 book "Bowling Alone," Harvard University political scientist Robert D. Putnam outlined the decline of social, civic, political and religious participation in the United States in the last half of the 20th century. Maybe that's why we feel less overall well-being than Kyrgyzstan -- we're cultivating an overly individualistic society.

The road to happiness is complex, but it is not always paved with dollars and cents.

Christopher Leelum, a student at Stony Brook University, is an intern with Newsday Opinion and amNew York.