Miss (im)Mortality

I've been thinking about the end of days these past few weeks. In part, because my parents were in CT and much of our conversation concerned their imminent move to a retirement village. And, in part, because R.E.M. breaking up has really drawn a line under my 'youth'. My father laughed heartily when I informed him I was now officially middle aged: "Middle aged? You planning to live to 102?" Ha, ha indeed, Dad; your mother lived until she was 94, and Gramps until his early 90s. I'm not ruling out the possibility.

One rainy, jet-lagged London morning in the early 90s: I came face-to-face with my ghost of Christmas future. She was a tiny old lady, humpbacked. Muttering and shuffling along the freezing Stockwell pavements in her slippers. Dragging a leaky daschund behind her on a string. As I passed her, I caught a whiff of old cigarette smoke, human pee and general unwash.

I spent the journey to work imagining her life: 25 stories up a council block with a broken lift, alone in a cold water flat, surviving on pot noodles and cup-a-soup .... oh the horror, the horror.

Fast forward twenty years to last week's head wobble: maybe I 'retired' too early. That wasn't the plan when I left NY. I was always going to work. And I do. But, I earn nowhere what I 'should' be earning in order to bolster up my retirement funds. And, nor am I likely to. 55 is the first stop on the retirement train - and that's only 4 years from now.

I asked Jeremy, the family's financial 'safe-pair-of-hands', to run a pension scenario for me. Against what I have right now. What he showed me has put my mind at rest somewhat - but has also put actual figures on my twilight years. Sobering.

My mom loves Oprah Winfrey and is always telling me about things she saw on her show. I find O somewhat unsettling - but perhaps that has more to do with my wariness of people with money and power - than the actual show content.

Glennie was ambivalent about Tal Ben Shahar, Positive Psychologist and Happiness Guru. She was impressed by his approach to gratitude (very Catholic). But nonplussed by his urging that she live "in the moment". Not a concept that we Wildish women embrace with any confidence. We're fatalistic pragmatists.

I asked her one of Shahar's famous questions: "what would make your life 5% happier?" Mom responded immediately: "If your dad and I could go and see Chris in London." Can you afford to? "Yes we can, but we can't because what if we need the money in 10 years time and we wasted it on the trip?

"What if we wasted it on the trip?". That shook me out of my wobble. My mom is in her early 70s and she is worrying about the same things I am fretting over in my 50s. Things neither of us can control - even if we do nothing and go nowhere.

Jeremy's pension forecast covers me until my actuarially predicted death at age 85. What happens after that - I have no idea. But I'm not going to worry about it now.

Happy, Happier, Happiest

I'm reading Tal Ben-Shahar's follow-up to "Happy" - "Happier" (snappy, eh). The sequel is essentially, a guided workbook (which Ben-Sahar, in an unusual misstep, describes as: "A Gratitude Journal for Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment". Urrrgh, Tal - way too much buddy.) The premise is that by completing various written exercises, you remind yourself of all the things you have in your life that are worthy of gratitude. And when you live with gratitude - it builds happiness.

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.

The Lost Art of Happiness

Tal Ben-Shahar believes we can learn to be happier.  He defines happiness as being "the overall experience of pleasure and meaning".   Being happy, he says, means knowing what makes you happy.  Being happy takes practice and dedication.  Being happy has nothing to do with how much money you have. And, having just finished his book "Happier" - I find I agree. 

A departure for someone who used to get stuck on the money point.  My fear was always of living out my old age in a cold water flat, with an incontinent daschund.  I was convinced if I didn't work my ass off every day I would end up one of those old ladies on the high road who left a trail of eau de wee as they wafted past.  My last two pounds weighing down the pocket of my grubby, pie-gravy smeared cardigan.  So I worked for people I didn't like for far too long.  

Ben-Shahar is not saying that happiness lies in poverty.  Not at all.  He acknowledges that money can play its part in creating happiness by freeing us to do more of what makes us happy. What he is saying is once the three essentials - home, food and education are covered - the possibilities to be happy are infinite. Just so long as we know what happiness means to us. 

Positive Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced 'cheek-sent-me-high-ee') believes that we experience happiness when we are in a state of Flow. Flow, he says, is when 'action and awareness are merged'.  In other words, Flow comes about when we are completely absorbed in a task or experience. 

I thought back to the last few of times I felt that way:  drinking coffee today and reading this month's American Vogue, making sandwiches at a music festival, painting flower boxes in the back garden.  I didn't hear the friend greet me, I hardly felt 6 hours pass, and Saturday afternoon was over before I knew it.

Time flows when you're having fun.  

Each of these experiences passes Ben-Shahar's MSP Process evaluator. Each held Meaning: I was learning, helping, improving. Each gave me Pleasure, reflected something that I enjoy: fashion/music/food/people/home. Each required a skill level or Strength that I have.  None of them were done for the approval of others. 

Ben-Shahar's theory is simple.  For something to bring us happiness - it must have an intrinsic or inner importance.  And must satisfy our interests, values and beliefs.  Trying to create happiness through something of extrinsic or external importance - needing others approval, or amassing status symbols - will leave us short-changed.  The happiness will be fleeting and we will have to start all over again to achieve the same result.

But Tal is a pragmatist - he knows that we will sometimes have to do some things that we don't like. However - if these experiences help to facilitate ongoing happiness  - we can make them part of our lives.  Just not all of our lives.  

Ben-Shahar also points out that we should not expect to be happy every living moment, it's an aggregate of experiences across our whole lives.  Sometimes we will have to do things we don't love doing - because they will help facilitate the things we do.   A job that doesn't challenge - but brings in money for the holiday we want to take.  He reminds us throughout his book that happiness is not a place, a state, a destination - it's a journey.  A constant work-in-progress. That when we evaluate all of our experiences, on aggregate - we should feel happy.

I've been worrying about what next year will bring work-wise.  I've decided to stop that and focus on doing more of what I am enjoying right now.  My three essentials are covered and it's time to invoke that old coaching saw:  do more of what works.  I'm happy and I am going to keep working at it.