Knowing when to stop

Right, fairy Zahra is back to spread the words of happiness once again.  Now that I have come to two realisations, a) be me, and b) I am doing this alone, I thought that now is the time to start making of list of things to start implementing to make me happier.  Surely, filling your life with things you know make you happy will make you happy.  And ofcourse peoples personal happiness check lists differ.  Seeing friends and loved ones more, spending more time together in a relationship, spending more or even less time with the kids, taking up a new sport, activity, hobby... list is endless.

Indeed this endless list is the thing that got me thinking, at what point does the happiness project become a burden?  Like everything in my life, it can be described by my favourite graph, A Michaelis Menten curve ( you science geeks know JUST what I am talking about). For the non scientists, here it is:

         

There must be a point, which is an arbitary unit and different for each individual that the happiness activities you are implementing start to make you unhappy simply because you have taken on too much. If I am  honest, I have seen it all too much around me where people "burn out" from doing so much, similar to a little enzyme chomping away at a molecule (thats what Michaelis Menten is all about). Unless something changes in your environment, like your support network, your job, your family situation, or for the little enzyme, the temperature, the amount of enzyme, the buffer its in (the environment) you will get to a point where you can add all the happiness activities you want, you will fail to be happier. This is Vmax - the maximum happiness you can possibly get. Then even after that you might find that you are starting to get unhappy... or if you were an enzyme... you will start to denature.

So, the key here is identifying your Vmax.  That is the challenge. And so that is when listening to feedback is vital (my line manager will be so thrilled to hear this).  You have to listen to those around you, particularly those who have your best interests at heart when they are telling you to slow it down. In addition, you have to be quite intune with your own body and start to realise when enough is enough. I think I am probably close to Vmax, which is why the changes I am about to implement are not going to be drastic. Where on the Michaelis Menten Curve are YOU?

Flu-Spreading the Happiness

Before I start writing about my next happiness adventure, I thought I would first reflect.

Ok, so I started the blog, am I happier?  Well certainly I have been overwhelmed by the comments and support from everyone.. but is that happier?  It has been quite exciting writing a blog and checking on how many people have clicked on my page, and I guess that adrenaline rush does make me a bit happier... so yes.. I'd say that writing this has made me that little bit happier.

So after realising that my first happiness rule was to just be me, I started to think that this happiness project might be quite nice to implement on my poor unsuspecting 7 year old. Actually, she is not unsuspecting. The happiness adventure started several months back with an innocent question "mummy, what are you reading?". And so my description of the happiness project started.

I then thought it would be great if we could do this together, the two of us. Lets just make a list of all things that make us happy and lets just do it. Oh how Naive Am I.  My 7 year old just looked at me and said "mum, you're weird". I cannot dispute that.  So I thought the best thing to do is to subtly start to ask random happiness questions, but the problem with modern 7 year olds... they are actually smarter than us.

So here I am at the end of August. Any mention of the word "happiness project" and my 7 year old shoots daggers at me with her eyes. The word "happiness" is now banned (by her) in the house and I am not allowed to talk about it.  So, this brings me onto my second realisation - this is a journey that you have to do alone. You can't make people (and your loved ones) buy into your happiness. You cannot infect the happiness by sneezing on them. You have to accept that only you can change yourself. And there is a strong strong chance that the people around you may not even respond to the happier and more positive you. You will have to learn to live with that disappointment. So I am going solo, its my happiness project and now my ONLY outlet is this blog.  Only time will tell whether my personal adventure might have an impact on those around me.

The Happiness Formula

The issue I have is I am a through and through scientist. So like everything I approach in life, this happiness project also has to be approached in a scientific and logical method.  So what is happiness? Good question, and I know who will know; google.

So I google in the word "happiness" and I get all sorts that I will share with you.

The quotes
There is a whole bunch of quotes here they are
 

 

 

Ok, so these are three quotes I have selected for you to muse at. Really, happiness for a month is marriage, that was obviously written by a saddo single person, and so that totally discredited the first quote. Moving on.  Happiness is perfume?  Wait a minute is it NORMAL to pour perfume on people? Really, have a missed out on some obscure past time. So that quote I had to ignore. Then comes the final quote. Happiness sneaks into a door. I am sorry, but that won't do it for a scientist thinker like myself, I can't have haphazard happiness, I needed something tangible scientific and measurable.

So the quotes aren't doing it for me. Time to revisit the whole happiness defenition.

The Formula
Need something more scientific so started to look for a formula.  Here is what I found:

 
In its simplest form, happiness is the reality minus expectations, and if your expectations exceed reality, then you are in negative happiness - or in otherwords miserable. Truth to that. But how do you measure expectations. Do I even know what my expectations are? And I can't really measure this, I needed something that encompassed everything in my life:

 
Ok, I can feel the scientists getting excited here, but really this calculation does not make any sense either. Amount of Rain??  Alcohol consumption (and they can't even spell consumption). And so equation totally discredited.


Ok, this is getting harder than initially thought, and I can't seem to find anything that I can comprehend as to what is it I need to do to be happier.  The abstract quotations are all totally that... abstract. And the scientific approach which would have been brill, turns out what written by a bunch of morons.

So here it is, I am going to have my own definition and measure of happiness. And the only way I can measure my happiness is via this blog. I can record and publicly publish my joys and woes and see if the things I am implementing in my life really are making me happier.  And so that comes to my first realisation of happiness - Be Me.

Sounds simple, but really it requires a lot of self reflection. I don't do poetry and quotes, I don't understand them, and however much I would love to pull out some Shakespearean quotation on happiness, I know I won't get it.  So I need to accept myself, I am Zahra. I can't memorise the spelling of "protein" I am not able to memorise quotes and say they have meaning for me because they won't. I am going to have to accept that it will be a series of lists and tasks that I have to complete to reach my happiness goal, and you can be the judge of whether this works or not!

The beginning

Here I am. I did it. The first step of my happiness project. Create a blog

And why create a blog. So I can track my happiness project. And so I remember to be happy. Afterall, thats the aim of all of this.

I am not an unhappy person. I am optimistic, I have lots of lovely family and friends whom I get on with amazingly. I have a lovely home, a good job, a lovely daughter who is mostly a pleasure. I go on holidays several times a year. Yes, I am happy. But here is my challenge, can I be happier? And can I learn to appreciate what I have and be more grateful. We will find out.

Ok, so this is not a new concept and you avid readers out there will know that this was done before. Gretchen Rubin set off on an adventure to find and fufill her life with happiness, and yes, I am ashamed to admit... I am copying her.

But my aim here is not to tell YOU what to do. My aim is to record my own happiness project so that you can follow my adventure. And so you can see if its worth it. And if you hate my blog, then read the book [[The Happiness Project by Gretchn Rubin]].

So on my task list, first item ticked off. Create a blog. I'll keep you waiting for a few days while I think more about what my happiness project is going to be.