The Slippery Slope

Yes... my next few blogs are all going to be doom and gloom, some harsh realities about happiness. Last blog I touched on genetics, how you may actually be genetically incapable of being happy, there are real genes out there that are associated with happiness. This blog, lets face it, happiness is on the decline.

Life has gotten easier. Tasks that took us a whole day 50 years ago, now take us an hour at most. Think of the laundry, communicating with people, technology has enabled us to make things faster and quicker with little input from us.  Communication is key to happiness, friends and family makes us happy. Right now, I am sitting at the gymnasium waiting for my daughter to finish her gym class. Every single parent, albeit two (who are actually talking to each other) is plugged into an electronic devise of some sort. Including me.  But our addictions to WhatsApp and Facebook aren't making us happy, studies are all there to prove it.  We are becoming more and more miserable as a nation. You don't need the studies, ask any GP what they see coming into their surgeries. Depression is on the increase, more and more people are pill popping to keep them in some sort of meta-happy state.  Although life is technically easier, its not.

Never ever has more ever been expected from us as individuals and collectively as a society. Our every minutes have to be filled with some task. Yes, I have a spare 5 minutes, lets respond to emails, let me do my Sainsburys shopping, let me order a new door handle....  The definition of success:  money and power no longer works for us. Its exhausting us and making us more and more unhappy.  Who defined this success anyway? We all fight it amongst ourselves for the next promotion and the next better paid job. I am a complex being, surely my success is based on so much more than my work?


I have no solutions. I am still figuring this out for myself. But sometimes we need to slow down and almost stop. I am a hypocrite, I never slow down and never stop. Like one student once said to me "I'll rest when I die". But the problem is, if I don't rest, that route to death is going to be a very painful one.

sleep

Sleep. The new buzz word. I hear it everywhere these days.  Bhutan has now declared itself a happier nation. Why is that? The Prime Minister claims it’s because its citizens are sleeping more. In fact 91.2% of Bhutanese citizens have declared themselves happy.  Funnily, those who are happiest are the monks. Probably because they never marry.  

The sleep connection to happiness goes further. Shocking. 23% of married couples do not share the same bed. But these couples claim that this is the key to their successful happy. And why? Because you get a good nights sleep. The tossing and turning (or even snoring) of a partner beside you disrupts the quality of your sleep. More and more of my married friends in my circles admit this.  I’m a bit selfish; I get the bed to myself anyway.  So now, instead of staying up all night finishing off your jobs, leave it all and get to bed. And its uninterrupted sleep that’s the key.

I feel quite naïve reading all this.  In my very first blogs I spoke about my changes to become a happier person, and I thought my 8 hours a night was ridiculous and I needed less sleep. If you’ve been following my blog, you realise I did a u-turn, and I realised how non functional I was on 6 hours sleep. I agree, sleep is necessary and key to a happy life.  But its scientific attributes are only beginning to become evident, the realities of actually how a lack of sleep is hurting us, even killing us.  It makes us more stressed, irritable, on a physiological level, it increases blood pressure, depression, muscular aches, obesity, headaches. So grab a pillow and a blanket and take a snooze – it will only make you happier.

character happy

There are 24 strengths of character, I'll list them all. Maybe you can identify with all of them to some extent, maybe you can identify with some more strongly than others. But take a good look... your strength of character will reveal alot about yourself...

1. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence - Noticing and appreciating the beauty around you, whether it be art, nature or mathematics
2. Bravery - Speaking up for what is right, even if you're the only one speaking! Also includes physical bravery
3. Citizenship - Working with the team or community, being loyal to that team or community
4. Creativity - Coming up with new ways to do things, not only artistic
5. Curiosity - Finding everything interesting, love exploring
6. Fairness - Treating everyone the same, trying to overcome personal bias to ensure everyone is treated equally
7. Forgiveness and Mercy - Forgiving those who have done you wrong, giving people a second chance
8. Gratitude - Being aware and thankful for what you have and taking time to express thanks
9. Hope - Working towards the future, and believing that working hard can change it
10. Humour - Liking to laugh and tease, bringing smiles to other people, lightheartedness
11. Integrity - Speaking the truth, presenting yourself in an honest and open way, take responsibility for your actions
12. Judgement - Thinking things through, not jumping to conclusions, able to change your mind in light of evidence
13. Kindness - Doing good deeds for others and helping them. Taking care
14. Leadership - Getting a group together to get things done, organising group activities and make sure they are done
15. Love - Being close to people, value close relationships with others
16. Love of Learning - Mastering new skills, adding to what you know
17. Modesty and Humility - Letting ones accomplishments speak for them self, not wanting to get into the spotlight
18. Persistence - Taking pleasure in completing tasks, finishing what you set off to start
19. Perspective - Being able to provide wise counsel to others
20. Prudence - Being careful about your choices, not taking risks
21. Self Regulation - Controlling emotions, being disciplined
22. Social Intelligence - Being aware of the motives of other people, how to fit into different social situations
23. Spirituality - Have strong feelings about the meaning of life and purpose that shapes conduct and provides comfort
24. Zest - Approaching life with excitement and energy, never doing things half heartedly, feeling activated and alive

I'll be honest, there are several of these characters that I cannot relate to at all, or very little, and others that more strongly resonate with me. Conversely, there are characters that others may see in me and I do not see in myself and vice versa.

So what has this got to do with my happiness project?  There are 2 character strengths that resonate strongly with happiness, hope and zest.  With some character traits, having too much of a character can start to be detrimental, like loving too much starts to become a negative. But not with happiness, you can have oodles of hope and zest and the happiness will just increase.

There are other traits that are more weakly associated with happiness; gratitude, love and curiosity, but its hope and zest that really stand out.

So flipping the coin... are there traits that lead to "less happiness"? Yes there are: Modesty, Creativity, Judgement, Appreciation of Beauty, Love of learning and Prudence.

There are several studies that have lead to these conclusions, so its real.  My philosophy is to focus on the positives, if you want to have more happiness, focus on the hope and zest. And with that, I'm parachuting off a cliff edge, and hoping I won't die.

The Grass is Never Greener

Peculiar. That's the best way to sum up yesterday. Peculiar in many ways, but one phrase uttered to me particularly stuck in my memory.  I was asked a question, is it true that I have it made, always on cloud 9, or am I a really good actress?

Its peculiar as I really didn't know how to answer it. Do I really advertise myself as the perfect being? Is my blog portraying me as the Nigella Lawson of the Internet? I didn't want that to be the case. I have highlighted on here my struggles, my demons and my frustrations. And if anything, I would say perhaps I was more negative than positive. So it makes me think of the later part of the question, am I an actress? Am I a fraud who has fooled you all my readers, into believing that I am the goddess of happiness and bliss?

I sincerely hope not. My life is far from perfect, but maybe the difference between me and others is that I believe I have the power to change things around me, and I am dedicated to changing that. I read my blogs again. I don't think I ever portrayed myself to be a happiness fairy sprinkling happiness dust down your throats. Correct me if I'm wrong. But maybe, we as humans, have the tendency to look at others and think - I want that life.

Something I realised over 15 years ago was that the grass is never greener on the other side. You may think someone is perfect, with lovely children, lots of money, a devoted husband - but we are all real people with real problems, and we don't really know what is going on behind closed doors. Even with our closest friends and families. And I blame social media. Where its actually become a contest - look at this massive bunch of flowers my partner got me for no reason, look at the lovely neighbours I have, they all pitched in a tenner and bought me a Porsche... and we tend to use social media to brag and show to others what we have. Giving the perception that other peoples lives are better than our own.

But over the last 5 years in particular, as my friendship networks deepen, and I mature more. And I begin to see through the roses - I realise that even the most perfect people have problems far bigger than mine. And this is part of the epiphany needed to bring inner peace and happiness, stop looking at others with envy. Really, if we all had our problems in a heap, you'd take your own back any day.

The Age of Happiness

Making more of an effort, how am I getting on?  I can start seeing some sense in my new vision board, and doing well with my ultimate to do list with now 2 of the 40 items complete - as of last week, our home is now salt free.  Only 38 more tasks to go, but I do have several years to do it.

I began to wonder when happiness peaks on ones life and what are the measures of happiness at each stage in your life. As I was considering this, I thought it surely must be post retirement - when life has calmed down, you've learnt from mistakes and your financial burdens are over...

Oh was I wrong. Apparently, you are at the pinnacle of your happiness at the tender age of 34. The reason, its the age you marry, have children, get onto the property ladder, are comfortable meeting monthly repayments and are making decent strides in your career.  Yes, I can relate to that, but surely the goal posts for happiness move in different stages of your life? Surely at university, where life was carefree and one big party, that was happy? The flaw with this study is that they asked a bunch of over 40s and when trying to recall the happiest moments of my life, our minds always take us back to times when we were much happier THEN than now.  There is a certain degree of reminiscing about the past, and I guess if that's a human tendency - you can't really ask a dead person when they were most happiest.

I looked into more studies, and actually found that there is no magic age of happiness, at different stages of life there are elements of happiness.  So goal posts move, and that got me thinking more about my happiness project and the goals I've set - well they can move too surely with time? We change and evolve and its ok to decide that certain tasks are no longer making us happy?  So a key aspect of any happiness endeavour is to review and replace, and that's ok because it confirms you are still human and you are moving on.