Perhaps in society's incessant and voracious clammer to try to be happy which, it seems, generally seems to involve accumulation of material objects or consumption, we could investigate a different way.
Perhaps by changing the language or the narrative, we might move in a slightly different direction which might be more effective.
Many years ago I wrote a blog about happiness, after reading some research which suggested that of all the people in your close network (maximum 100) you were only likely to ever know 7-10 people who were genuinely ‘happy’.
I remember after writing that blog that one of my friends messaged that he was happy but very few other people ever engaged.
In spite of all the wealth that we have created and all the products that are available to us, we still continue (many of us at least) to lead a life of quiet desperation.
In many ways this life seems no different to that of anyone in the industrial revolution who get up and go to work and come home and go to work and get up and go to work again, in a pattern that’s only interspersed by weekends and holidays.
We continue to seek out new ways to give us short-term ‘happy’, including gifts that we don’t really need which are wrapped in things that we don’t really want, for purposes that we can’t even use.
You can only have one watch on at a time.
You can only drive one car at a time.
In spite of this clammer for more, most of the people who I know who have most seem dissatisfied and far from happy.
And so, perhaps the pursuit is not to be happy, perhaps the pursuit is just to be happier.
Last year, John Gibson was teaching on our business course in a leadership session called ‘know yourself, to lead yourself, to lead others’.
It’s one of the most extraordinary teaching sessions you’re ever liable to sit in on but nobody wants to pay for that stuff.
During that session he taught me (and anyone else who cared to listen) how to use a timeline of your life to frame the things which seem most important to your character and so soon after that, I drew my timeline to 2020 and it’s pinned to the whiteboard in my office.
As I look back through the significant times in my life and the significant events are the things which made me happier, they are just that.
They are events and connections and experiences and nowhere on that list is there anything that I acquired by spending money.
So, if I can return back to anything that I’ve learnt before about happiness it’s that very small little boosters, strategically placed in your life can make you feel better and better and more contented than you felt when you were on the hamster wheel buying stuff.
It’s been a long time since I tried to be happy but every single day when I wake up, strive to be happier.
Blog Post Number - 2735
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