Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord.”
(CS Lewis, Weight of Glory)
Somehow, something that eats at my happiness is rugby at Loftus Versfeld.
Loftus is the home stadium of the Blue Bulls. It’s just down the orad from where I live. When there is a match on, and I have to drive through the masses of cars and ‘freelance parking assistants’ and pedestrians, I immediately feel very annoyed and aggressive.
This does not happen every day, of course, and most of the time it has no effect on me. But when I do get mixed up in it, I get annoyed.
I’m not a rugby fan, and much less a Bulls supporter, which doesn’t help. But why can’t I relax and join the people in their enjoyment?
In the 2011 Happiness Challenge, the theme for the month is Resolutions, and the last video suggested that we select a one-word theme for the year.
I watched the video, but at the time I didn’t think much about it.
This morning, I had a happiness-reducing experience, and the theme for this year floated into my mind: “Maintain”
If things work out as planned, this is going to be a busy, busy year. If I don’t maintain, next year, which might be even worse, will start with a deficit.
Maintain does not imply that there will not be growth, but that the growth will build on a well-maintained environment.
Gretchen Rubin makes the point that enough sleep is of central importance to happiness. Recent reading has convinced me of this, and I’d love to one day do an experiment in living without artificial light.
But for now, getting to bed at an early hour is what I will do.
After the weekend’s experience of not sleeping well, I got to realize something: not getting to bed early enough waste time twice: once when I spend midnight hours being unproductive, and the second time when I spend my waking hours being under-productive because of lack of sleep.
I found this very interesting and informative piece on autism. It’s a good read, a very personal view, and very useful.
Ten things everyone should know about autism.
What does autism have to do with happiness? Point 9 in the blog post is titled Autistic people can be happy without being cured.
The point ends But being a happy autistic person isn’t “being brave” or “making the best of it”. It’s quite simply being happy. You don’t have to be normal to be happy.
This is quite liberating for me: I don’t have to be normal to be happy. Or, as Gretchen Rubin will say, everybody’s Happiness Project will look different.
The autistic person’s happiness project is of course a good bit more difficult than the the neurotypical’s, so my slightyly ideosyncratic happiness project may also work for me, but it might not be easiest.
There’s one thing that’s very detrimental to my happiness, and I consider making a Happiness Commandment out of it. I think it would be “Don’t Wait.”
This is not the kind of “wait” found in procrastination. This is the kind of wait as in “waiting for”. If I wait for somebody to phone, for somebody to come around, for something to happen, and there’s no deadline or no certain time to it, I become unhappy. I’m not sure about the emotions involved, I just notice that I become passive and after a while I feel unhappy.
Yesterday afternoon I saw a friend in passing, and she said “I’ll call you tomorrow.” This morning I wondered if I should wait for the call, and I realized that the promise was so vague and unlikely that I would just be waiting for something that won’t happen. This realization (which was not particularly new) pointed me towards a part of my assumptive world that I can change to improve my happiness.
I’m wondering if I should make changes to my gym routine to improve my happiness.
On Mondays I do a gym class with weights. It’s very effective, and it’s the only strength training I need to do, in my experience. But because I’m putting quite some effort into it, I’m sore for the rest of the week. While the soreness is not distracting or very pronounced, I’m wondering if it might be affecting my happiness subconsciously.
I was prompted in this thought by a tip from Gretchen Rubin.
Have you ever noticed that specific wording to a goal or resolution has a profound effect on one’s attitude towards it?
As I use 43 Things I’ve recently noticed that months of resolving to clear my desk of clutter has had no effect, but once I decided to “turn my desk into a haven of peace and productivity” I very quickly saw results. My “declutter” goal is dead in the water, but my goal to “live in a spacious and tidy environment” is sailing ahead.
Discovering this power of words has made me happy, and I look forward to explore it more.
"By writing down things I'm grateful for I learned to think about being grateful."
How I did it: Every day I spent some time thinking about things to be grateful for, and wrote them down here. On days that I did not have internet access, I saved them and posted them later.
In the beginning there were a few days that I had skipped, but it soon became a firmly entrenched routine, the last thing I did before I switched off my computer.
It was a rare thing to be able to sit down and rattle off five things to be grateful for. Most days it took some thinking.
Knowing that there would be a quiz at the end, I started paying attention to things I could be grateful for. I made a mental note of the things I noticed, but usually by the end of the day I had forgotten what it was. That did not matter much, because I had already felt grateful, and that's the important thing.
Lessons & tips:
Resources:
It took me 999 days.
It made me grateful
NaNoWriMo this year contained a lesson in sleeping habits. I wrote after dark, which meant that I wrote into the time where self-control is lost, so that I got to sleep very late, being ‘busy’ on the web trying to wind down.
Getting back to good sleeping habits is taking more time than I thought it would, but I’m slowly getting there.
Gretchen Rubin alerted me to it, but of course we all know it. Getting enough sleep is a cornerstone of happiness. It is not only that lack of sleep makes me cranky and unproductive, it seems that lack of sleep actually interferes with self-regulation.
In my experience this is exactly the case. Lack of sleep means loss of will-power (which often leads to late nights, setting up a vicious circle.) It interferes with accuracy and speed. (The interesting study on Canadian road accident statistics on the days that summer time get switched on and off proves this.)
Earlier this year I slept well. This November I’m doing NaNoWriMo again, and it’s taking its toll on sleep. Although I’m not changing into a raging monster of unhappiness, I can feel that I need more energy to keep myself happy.
I have to admit it: I like sorting things.
I like taking a jumble of things and bringing order to it. I like unsnarling rope or cables. And it’s not only the idea that I like, I like getting my hands on the things, and I would willingly spend hours sorting them.
If you smell smoke or hear water running when you shouldn’t, investigate. You might prevent a lot of damage.
Gretchen Rubin suggest that doing things that gives one more energy will bring one more happiness. Lately she has been stressing sleep as a source of happiness.
I totally agree with her. Since I stopped drinking coffee I stared getting to bed earlier, and with deliberately going to bed ridiculously early I find that my happiness has increased.
Today I re-read an old post of Gretchen Rubin, and I realized the value of an “area of refuge.” Exercise and relaxation is good for eliminating residual stress, but for the present stressor distraction is probably a better option.
I’ll need to think a bit about what I can use as an “area of refuge.” I don’t think I’ve used one accidentally before.
I am unexpectedly happier without coffee. Despite being such a pleasure to drink coffee, or at least caffeine, has been a barrier between me and happiness.
I think the most powerful effect has been on the improvement in the quality of my sleep. I need much less sleep to be satisfied, and I don’t have to drag myself out of bed.
A second effect is that I no longer have to fear headaches. I get the most dreadful headaches from caffeine withdrawal. Not drinking coffee frees me from the worry having to keep my caffeine topped up.
I am re-reading a book: Lighting Up: How I Stopped Smoking, Drinking, and Everything Else I Loved in Life Except Sex by Susan Shapiro.
This book has brought me happiness. I can’t remember where I first heard of it, but I was intrigued by it’s descriptions, and I bought it with loyalty points.
Apart from being a good read, it is also a kind of Happiness Project, because it tells the story of the author kicking her smoking habit, with the help of her therapist, dr Winters. She discovers the multiple addictions she has, and what it means.
The book also brought me happiness, because I could lend it to a friend, who lent it to a horde of other people.
I am also trying to increase my happiness by following the book’s implicit advice. I am also trying to kick my addictions, the two of them being starch and coffee, often in combination.
Over the last few weeks I have been tapering down my coffee use, and yesterday I had my first day with none at all. It is not a particularly happy experience, but I know I will be healthier and better once I’m totally off it.
According to Gretchen Rubin “what we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.”
Until today I’ve read this as meaning that we should work on our happiness by doing happiness-producing things every day. This is true, but there is another truth in there: If we do a thing once in while that is not conducive to happiness, it does not matter much and there is little to worry about.
According to Gretchen Rubin “what we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.”
Until today I’ve read this as meaning that we should work on our happiness by doing happiness-producing things every day. This is true, but there is another truth in there: If we do a thing once in while that is not conducive to happiness, it does not matter much and there is little to worry about.
I have a very useful phrase for starting a job that I’m procrastinating on. I’m not sure if I should make it a commandment or not. Here it is: “Just have a look.”
Making progress on a big job does not just depend on work, it also takes some planning and thinking. “Just have a look” might give new ideas or sharpen the questions.
“Just have a look” means the covers are off, the book is open, the file is loaded. If it really is too much work for now, then it will be clear. Often there is something small that can be done that will add to the progress. Sometimes the job just starts flowing. Just by having a look.
