International Day of Happiness

Tomorrow is the International Day of Happiness. Spring equinox, super moon, solar eclipse, its all happening tomorrow but its officially a time to think about happiness. I came to know about this on radio 4 this week, and the first thing that radio 4 did was compile a play list of songs to make us happy. If only they know... music whether it be happy or sad always makes people happy - its scientifically proven.

The happiness movement intrigued me so I wanted to find out what International Happiness Day is all about.  Although they give guidance to happiness, I was struck how happiness really centred around people and community. I think I addressed this before, I am an extrovert, I like people, I need people to make me happy.  But it seems we all need people to be happy. So the site suggests organising happiness flash mobs and happy spots in big cities around the work. Apparently, London, Amsterdam, Bucharest, Milan and Washington DC are all doing it. No sign of Cambridge. I was actually more intrigued in the term "happiness flash mob". I only came to know what a flash mob is recently when I went to see Nativity 3: Dude wheres my donkey last Christmas with my daughter, and it was all about flash mobs (sigh). So a happiness one is where you just agree to meet somewhere with hand written placards that may make passersby happy to inject a bit of happiness in peoples lives. Hmmmmmmmm....

Not sure what to make of it, but community features quite heavily in my own happiness endeavours. Making effort with friends and family, having people over for dinner more, making an effort with neighbours, volunteering are all pledges and aims I personally set for myself and it is important, because helping others makes us feel good about ourselves and happy.  I, on the other hand, am setting up my own one man happiness flash mob in market square on Saturday, at least when the men in white coats take me away, I will be happy.

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.