How to be happy enough, without being happy enough

How to be happy enough, without being happy enough.

The following 'advise' is dedicated for my good friend Barry, who will shortly have to endure something, nobody wants to witness personally. All the best to you, Barry. Stay HAPPY! How? Well the following helped me quite a lot!

As we all realised our life has become quite capitalistic and materialistic. We seem to always need more: more money, a bigger flat screen, another car, etc. Maybe that is because of the 24/7 bombardment of advertisement which we receive everyday, if we want or not. Maybe we are too weak to resist or just lazy, or we actually like to have what is advertised all day and night. Anyway I’d say that we’ll get unhappy, if we don’t have what is advertised, that we are not content with our small screen TV when watching ads for a 52” plasma, that we get devastated because we cannot have all there is on TV, advertisement boards, and wherever else.

So does that mean that we shouldn’t concede? Should we be against ads and all they try to influence? Should we work without getting anything in return? Definitively not! We work hard, so we should be rewarded. But is the idea of gaining wealth with money and big TV (sorry for picking on the TV all the time, I love TVs ;) So does rewarding by buying things really make us happy? Maybe. For a short while but the glitter and shiny will soon become boring and obsolete, because it’s just an object. Having many things standing at home from Hifi, TV, consoles, self-ordering fridges, cars, amps and guitars to pool table might be impressive but it is really hard to enjoy all of that alone. So maybe having friends is the key to be happy with what you got?

Find friends for certain stuff. (I’ll get back to that later)

What about the hobb(ies). I often found myself in searching for a new hobby because the previous one was getting boring or I just wasn’t able to do it anymore (e.g. because I moved away from my friends). I suppose that you shouldn’t search for new hobbies non stop when not happy with the old one. Why not try to get back into the hobby that used to make you happy and balanced. If you’re not pleased with the old one that might be because of the following:

- not the right hobby
- nobody to share with
- no motivation left (for example all used up at work)
- unsure about hobby
- too many hobbies

Try to find one hobby at the time to avoid having pressure to follow up all your hobbies within a certain time. Again I have the very same experience. Doing too much in your free time does not actually relax you, which is the whole idea of your free time. Don't do lists for your free time activities. At work to do lists is common. In your free time your wishes what to do shouldn't be written down on a ‘to do list’. This creates pressure to achieve the list's content as it would be at work. Enjoying the actual parts of the list wouldn't be possible. You would be already thinking about the next one which needs to be done. So far we know that materialistic wealth is no must to lead to happiness. Furthermore the right hobby, shared with the right people can lead to a more positive attitude.

Be happy with what you have. We want to think positive. But if you think just for a minute if you flat would burn down with all your stuff in it what would you miss most? That's important to you.
So what I am trying to say is - learn to be happy with less. Be amazed by the little things in life, like a happy little child playing in the streets. A nice colleague at work, some nice person in the train. Being happy with less makes you want less. Meaning if your unhappy with things you might get into the buying makes happy thinking. More to buy and to posses makes happy. But is that so? I thing: No. So if other non-materialistic things enlighten your day there shouldn't be a need for a bigger TV or a new hobby?! Think the American way when it comes to celebrating success. But keep it for you, you don't want to be attacked ;) but celebrate what makes you happy to increase you happiness to a maximum.

Be unhappy if you must. Rather short and extreme than everyday a bit. Don't do stupid things to yourself though. That doesn't make things better, at all. But e.g. jogging or cycling to transform your negative feelings into energy and use it up. Again, that is far better then swallowing it down because it'll eat you up from the inside.

Do look out for happy people. Miserable people should be avoided if you're not happy yourself. Talk mainly to happy people or prolonging your chat with a positive person and keep conversation with negative people to a minimum. Listen to happy music, if that works. I personally do get sick, quite quickly, of must-make-happy-music. Do think back to times when you've been really happily and content with what you got. E.g. when you bought something that was very important to you or where you had to save for a long time before it was affordable. Now imagine that moment is now and start to use that 'thing' again imagining that it is newly bought. That'll keep down the need of buying new things because you get bored of the old stuff.

(no spell check performed, apologies for any inconvenience)