In week one - we had to list five things each day for which we were grateful. Two weeks ago, today, mine were: lunch with my friend Maurits, a conversation with my Dad, the ADT man had come to fix the endlessly beeping house alarm and my eyes were clearing up because I had medicine for pink eye (the final one counting as two). So, I was grateful for: friendship, that my dad is alive and I can chat to him, a silent house, itch-free eyes, money.
I enjoyed mentally running through my day before I went to sleep. Looking for good things. Not dwelling on bad. And it was astonishing to see how many good things do happen. Things we take for granted. I have a friend who has an on-going case of the blues right now - he can't fathom why his life hasn't turned out the way he hoped it would. He has a hankering for a long-ago time - when things were perfect. And that's making him unhappy in the life he has right now.
Why do we expect our lives to be perfect? Where does this come from? Is it because we are focused on what we don't have, rather than what we do? Another friend of mine is having a birthday in a couple days and we've all been asked to contribute to a dishwasher for him. His lover describes the birthday boy's hands as being "tired of washing up". I can understand that - especially given the hours he works. Plus I would hate to give up my own dishwasher.
But then I thought - maybe there is another way of looking at this: there is food on my table, bought by me with money I earned at my job, that has been cooked on my stove, eaten with people I care about and which will nourish my body. All or any part of that should make me only too happy to put my hands into the (hot) water that comes from the tap in my kitchen, in my warm, safe home.
So I wondered: why do we feel entitled to easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy existences? Where happiness is delivered with the milk? And, do we expect others to provide our happiness? All neatly packaged and fail-proof.
Are we just too damned lazy to work at our own happiness?
Week two asks that we create new rituals that will bring us happiness. The idea being that instead of "focusing on cultivating self discipline as a means towards change, we need to introduce rituals. ... Building rituals requires defining very precise behaviours and performing then at very specific times - motivated by deeply held values".
The process of change needs to be quantifiable so this post is one of my new rituals. I will write twice a week. On a Wednesday and on a Sunday. Then I will go to bed and run through the things that made me grateful in the day. Because I know, regardless of how crap the day seemed, there will be something.
Please know - I am not unhappy. In fact, I am happier more constantly than I have ever been. It's just that I am always open to new ways of being happy. So watch this space.
I bought the first book under your advice a while ago and it contains some of the exercises you refer to. I used to do that every night many years ago, when my writing my infamous journal (!) and do you know what? it was never hard to find one thing, at the end of every day, to be grateful for. I think we often confuse happiness for excitement and for material goods while happiness is just a series of intangible gifts right under our nose. And, by the way, you are one of them.
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