Siddhis

Siddhi are seemingly magical abilities attained through Sadhana. Sadhana translates as "a means of accomplishing something". In Yoga, it is used to describe Spiritual Exercise. Basically, your practice. Happiness in the form of Satchidananda (truth, knowledge, bliss) as a verb rather than a state. Something you do. Flow is a term in Positive Psychology used to describe when we are fully engaged in something. Not too anxious. Not too bored. A slight stretch of our skills by the challenges we face. I believe Siddhis are the long-term reward for daily practice. For regular Flow. Flow that turns into magic. Our sub-conscious abilities can be magical. To the point we amaze ourselves as we do things we can only do by "letting go". To let go, you sometimes need to start by choosing constraints. Committing to a practice that doesn't come naturally. Then actually do happiness. Every day. Do it. Till it soaks deep.

Finding Flow

Five Temperaments

We can have a bias to Anger and Cheerfulness as righteous or positive emotions. Different moods carry different creative possibilities. The 'Five Temperaments' Model looks at how long we take to come to a conclusion (temperature - hot/cold), and how long we hold onto what we are feeling (fluidity - dry/wet). Sanguine (Air/Pragmatic) moods are impulsive and short-lived. Phlegmatic (Water/Getting) moods take a longer time to form, but are also short-lived. Choleric (Fire/Ruling) come quickly, and last a while. Melancholic take a while, and stay a while. In Melancholic (Earth/Avoiding) moods, we chew. "Against Happiness" is an ode to Melancholy as a creative force. We don't always have to be happy. There is beauty in struggle. We all struggle. Melancholy can lead to deep and meaningful insight. It isn't always something to fight or medicate.

Emotional Integrity

Emotional is not the opposite of Rational. Emotions can be, and normally are, Rational. There is a reason for why you feel the way you do. If an emotion is irrational, discovering that can be a powerful tool to let it go. Unless there is some clinical issue that requires help. Emotional Integrity is a variety of happiness. Robert Solomon sees it as an ongoing "meta-emotion". Happiness is a summary evaluative judgement of us being in the world. Spirituality a way of taking that up a level, expanding the judged self to be suprahuman and all-inclusive. Emotional Integrity is developed when reflecting on values, purpose, and whether your emotions are constructive in building the type of life that resonates well. Emotions that serve.

Emotions that Resonate

Emotions that Serve

Velvet Problems

The truth is that it has been very easy for me to sit back an wax eloquent for the last two and a half years about how to try approach the good life. I hope I haven't been one of those annoying people who pretend they know the answer. I don't. I am very confused. Every time I think I 'see the matrix' and have figured things out, life giggles. I have the gift of the gab, and so can fit a story to any set of facts. Mostly I am just responding as best I can, often making mistakes, and often leaning on people to pick me back up. Tweaking my story to make the next step easier. I regularly find life difficult, but am acutely aware that I am incredibly lucky. My problems genuinely are velvet problems. That doesn't make them not problems. That's the crack in the matrix... problems never disappear. Coping is all we can do.

The Velvet Problems of the Red Pill

Half the Picture

It is deeply empowering to accept that the world owes you nothing. Stoically assuming the very worst. Face, and accept, anything that could possibly happen. Expect nothing. Then everything that happens will be positive. What sounds like an incredibly negative world view, can result in being permanently either content, or happy. If happiness is the relationship between expectation, and reality. The heart of this idea is that you are on your own. Your strength comes from within. But in weakness, and in vulnerability, there is a world of beauty that opens to those who are prepared to be disappointed. The beauty that comes from owing, and being owed, everything. Content or happy is half the picture.

Four Humours

I tell people that I study 'happiness and learning' which basically means I can think and write about anything. Because if it is not about one of those, what is the point? I got push back yesterday, and a book recommendation. There is more to life than happiness. There are the four humours (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic / air, fire, earth, water / spring, summer, autumn, winter). Life is hollow if it is just the pursuit of happiness. I do believe in 'The Art of Pain', and that the best you can wish someone is a little misfortune. Life comes through flavour and contrast. Strength comes through a little stress. But perhaps the stress itself has value, in and of itself, not just because it allows us to savour the other moments?

'Against Happiness'

A Little Happiness

There is a core to happiness. For me, it is about adding space. Removing comparison. Getting down to the basics. Each day doing a little to get fitter, eat more consciously, breath deeper, relax more fully, think more meaningfully, engage in what matters and treasure my relationships. A little. I always dreamt big. I am trying to dream little. Small steps each day, savouring them as I take them. Appreciating the beauty that surrounds me. Drawing on the experiences and lessons of the pain. Sharing my world with others and learning about theirs. Expanding my identity and chipping away at borders. 

Savouring Life

What Do You Do?

One of my best buddies vetoed my answer to his girlfriend's 'What do you do?'. Another just laughed, and said 'Is that what you are going with?'. All I had said was, 'I am a writer'. The truth is more complicated than that, but it is funny how easy most people find that question to answer even though the truth is more complicated.

In 2011, I started renting an Art Studio at the Wimbledon Art Studios. If renting an art studio makes you an artist, did I stop being an artist four years later when I gave up my studio to tighten up on expenses? Do you have to have sold work? How much? So does that exclude Van Gogh? Do you have to have done formal studies? Then what about the self-taught artists? At what point are you allowed to call yourself something? Another way I have cut back is that I have resigned as an Actuary. No membership fees in exchange for no FIA after my name. Just call me Trev.

Last day in my Art Studio a year ago

In India, most Gurus are self proclaimed. If one person follows you, you are a Guru. In truth, you don't need one person to follow you. If you are the only one who realises you are a Guru, you are. Some like the idea of more formal certification, titles, professional bodies and various other signals. I like the 'Stephen Hawking' idea. I have heard he uses no titles or letters after his name. Admittedly, the guy is so famous his name is a title. Labels give short cuts in an anonymous world.

'What do I do?'. Each day I wake up, preferably without an alarm, and do some reading before I write my blog post for the day. The rest of the day is free. I try to be 'micro-ambitious'. I like the framework I have learnt through Yoga. The five points focus on proper exercise, breathing, relaxation, diet and thinking. Progress is tiny and incremental. Each day, I try work another ache out of my body and learn something new. I try create space to read and think about the things that matter to people that matter to me. I try make myself available to spend time with people.

I stopped working for a salary about a year and a half ago. I am attempting to let my savings be my breadwinner while I focus on life building. If I spend less than my money makes, then I can keep that up. That is a general rule. If you use less than you put in, what you are doing is sustainable. If you use more, you are a consumer. 'How much is enough' depends on you. It is embarrassing to see how little material stuff the majority of the world's population get by on. The median household income of the rich OECD countries in 2011 was $19,000. Roughly 1.2 Billion people 'live' on less than $1.25/day. That is not enough, but enough is less than you think.

OECD Household Income

We mostly define ourselves by our work. Answering the question with 'I am retired' got awkward. I don't believe in retirement. I say writer because it is something I do every day. Perhaps I could answer the question, 'I make time'. The friend who laughed at my answer also hasn't figured out his answer. John's project is Unogwaja. He is trying to figure out how to be a partner to people who are trying to do good work. Trying to inspire fun and togetherness as we figure out what it is we need to do. And get on with it.

Occupational Hazards

Most strengths have associated weaknesses if they are overused. We know this from it's opposite and the unfair interview question of 'what are your weaknesses?'. The normal response is trotting out things like 'I can be a bit of a perfectionist/ I can be a bit bossy when things need to get done/... My awesomeness often irritates people'. There are Occupational Hazards that can be be tough to avoid. If you are a lawyer trained to find holes in arguments, it can be difficult to switch that off when you are listening to your friends. If you are a psychologist, it can be difficult not to analyse the people close to you. If you are a doctor, it can be difficult to show empathy to someone with a few sniffs and a severe, debilitating case of man flu.

I have spent the last 15 months writing daily blog posts, and thinking about happiness and learning. One of the criticisms of the modern world is that we don't have time to think. I have time to think. We don't have time for our friends and family. I have time for friends and family. We don't notice things because our heads are absorbed by work worries. I have time to notice things.

By writing every day, looking for ideas has become a habit. Almost every conversation becomes a potential blog post. Almost every interaction becomes a dot that I might be able to connect to something else. The very human characteristic of trying to see patterns in everything becomes what I am almost always thinking about. The problem is you can end up like John Nash in a cabin in the backyard seeing patterns that aren't actually there. Some things are just random, unconnected, inconsistent, noise.

Connecting Dots for the sake of it

I regularly get asked what my biggest take home has been. Despite thinking simplifying things down to 100 words is a useful exercise, I don't think it is a great way of giving answers. It is a good way of getting new, more beautiful, questions. I don't think I have big take homes yet. I started out with the idea of '100 hour projects'. By self-experimenting on learning things that I had previously thought I wasn't good at, I could extract richness from areas of experiences I had ruled out. I could write about barriers to learning. Instead of 10,000 hours and becoming World Class, wouldn't it be great to just get over the first hurdles that often stop us before we start. I thought 'First 100 hours' was catchy. I even bought first100hrs.com. Then I discovered Josh Kaufman's 'The First 20 hours'. Between that and Tim Ferris' 'The 4-hour work week', I wasn't sure I could add anything particularly useful.

My approach shifted to simply creating space in my day, and in my head. And seeing what happened. My goals narrowed from the other interview question 'Where do you see yourself in 5 years time', to how can I just have a great day. I heard Tim Minchin's talk on micro-ambition and it resonated with me. I had always had very long term plans. I wanted to learn to write. I decided to day that. By writing.

One thing that happened with the space is that I don't think it is about getting answers. It may not even be about seeing patterns. One of the most powerful stories of the last year came from two sources, both connected to two extended family members I hadn't spent much time with. One is my cousin Charles who is a chronic pain psychologist. He helps people to stop trying to fix things. By accepting that pain is chronic, they are able to make mental space to look beyond the pain. The pain just is. But it isn't more. The other part of the story came from Morfar (literally mother's father. My cousin's wife's Dad*). Morfar had experienced chronic pain throughout his life because of gallstones and has the Swedish record for the most removed over a lifetime. He is a very positive, very friendly man who has learned to cope.

So I don't think the point is to figure out some secret to happiness. Or to spot a pattern that may lead to an insight that will change peoples lives. I think the point is to accept things. To value people. To do the best you can. The world is rich with connections that matter.

Already.

*The Swedes are very literal in their names. The Stockholm 'cousin' I was visiting's Father is my Grandfather's cousin. Introducing me to the Vikings was awkward.

Bring and Braai (with Stephen)

In 2000, Zimbabwe was centre of conversation. A stream of global interest got my Zim buddies excited that perhaps there was going to be change. Then 9/11 happened and the global attention span shifted. Small countries like Rwanda have also captured and lost attention. In the time they have been forgotten they can change dramatically, but be remembered in a different way. Like a nephew you meet again as an adult. I was reintroduced to Rwanda in 2013 when I was looking at businesses there, trying to find ones worth buying shares in. It really has changed. My mo-growing former colleague and friend Stephen had lived and worked there, and considered the country a second home.

Rediscovering Rwanda

Stephen:

Thank you, Trev. Rwanda is indeed a rapidly changing country. I arrived there in 2003, nine years after the genocide, but already there was virtually no obvious evidence of the horrors that had gone before. President Paul Kagame, the controversial figure who is credited with ending the genocide, but also accused of human rights abuses, has established a secure and peaceful environment in the country. The economy, tourist numbers, and human development index have all been rising rapidly. The Rwandan people I found in 2003 were reserved, and the grief under the surface must be immense, but they were also friendly, welcoming and seemingly optimistic for their future.

Trev:

South Africa had a 'Truth and Reconciliation' process led by Desmond Tutu after Apartheid. The idea was that as long as people were completely truthful, the horrors would be put aside. The Rwandan story of people who were neighbours turning on each other, but then somehow being able to figure a way to move forward, is both disturbing and inspiring. Finding a way to balance deep grief, resentment and a desire for vengeance with the question of the best next step is a real challenge. Do you go back regularly? Were there any interesting ways they approached the emotional rebuilding, separately from the obvious benefits of economic progress? Is it still a divided society? As I understand it, the divisions were fabricated as a 'divided and rule' approach.

Truth and Reconciliation

Stephen:

To answer your last point first, the division almost certainly did exist prior to colonialism - the ruling monarchy was an exclusively Tutsi dynasty, for example, and scholars are divided on whether the Hutu/Tutsi distinction is racial or purely a social one - but it's certainly also true that the Germans from 1894 to 1916, and then the Belgians from 1916 onwards, perpetuated and strengthened the dominance of the Tutsi in order to safeguard their own power. The reconciliation process, including the Gacaca village court system, has gone some way to emulating the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa, but it specifically dealt only with Hutu crimes of genocide against the Tutsi, not with alleged abuses by the Tutsi army that now forms the government, so I genuinely don't know whether the Hutu majority now feel happy to be in a peaceful and growing country, or resentful at a perceived new era of Tutsi dominance.

Trev:

I am trying to do more reading about Colonialism. When I did History at school, it was still the tail end of Apartheid. I lived in a 'liberal' area and so many of my teachers did give a more balanced view. But it is always useful relooking at history with the perspective of time. It is interesting how the European powers reinforced many of the hierarchical 'conservative' structures that were in place inhibiting the development of true democracy. I think that is part of the reason for the 'Big Men' problem we experienced in Africa. Perhaps it will only be the generations who aren't hurting any more that will be able to relook at things to get a better understanding. Perhaps there first needs to be an active attempt to patch the wounds, then invest in a reason to make fixing the wounds worth while. Some sort of communal aspiration to a better way.

 

'Big Men, Little People' by Alec Russell

Stephen:
What is particularly interesting is that despite attempting to justify the subjugation of African peoples because of their supposed primitive and savage culture, the colonialists in fact often gave their backing to the social structures that were already in place, as they did with the monarchy in Rwanda. The process of independence was often as badly handled as the colonialism itself though, and many of the African leaders who replaced the departed Europeans essentially perpetuated their style of rule. Rwanda was somewhat different, because the social order was turned on its head at the time of independence around 1960, with the previously downtrodden Hutu rising very rapidly to a position of dominance, with the backing of the outgoing Belgian administration. But this was no democratic righting of old wrongs, it simply swapped the roles of the two groups, with the Tutsi becoming the victims and the Hutu elite, now governing an independent state, the aggressors.

Trev:
The idea of primitive and savage cultures is amusing. I love reading of the fall of Rome to the 'Barbarians'. Nowadays the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) is used as a name for the countries in Southern Europe that are struggling. THESE were the 'founders' of European culture. The division between where culture came from in Greece/Turkey/Persia is also tenuous. Macedonia of Alexander the Great? Genghis' Monglia? The Barbarians were the Scandinavian Germanic blondies who inherited culture from those they defeated. History tends to make a mockery of tribal claims to being more civilised cultures. Turns out civilisation is what we in South Africa used to call a 'Bring and Braai'. You give something to the pot, and you take whatever works.

Stephen:
Here in the West, we consider ourselves to be the kings of civilisation and prosperity within the world, yet in many cases we have forgotten how to be social, and activities such as "Bring and Braai" are few and far between. We live our lives in the rat race, always worrying. In Rwanda, and in sub-Saharan Africa generally, I found a much more social way of living. People in villages typically toil hard growing food each day, but also spend a lot of time socialising and enjoying each other's company. They were very welcoming to me as an outsider too - wherever I went I was sure to find people willing to sit down with me over a "Primus" beer or enjoy a game of pool. The Rwandan villagers have an incredibly hard life of manual labour, and the trappings of poverty are everywhere, from food insecurity to needless death from curable disease. But despite that I genuinely think the "happiness" level is higher than it is in the UK.

Trev:
It is interesting to hold the seemingly conflicting ideas of poverty being a barrier to happiness, and the impoverished holding secrets to what it means to be happy. Sub-Saharan Africa is not just a story of people without money. Rwanda isn't just a story of genocide. Sometimes people just remember the photo of a vulture waiting for a little child to die in their head as 'the image of Africa'. It is indeed a wonderful place and I am a proud African. In our ability to build connections and take the best bits from around the world, I think we are starting to build new ideas of what civilisation is. It gets me very excited.

Stephen:
Although I can make no claim to be an African, I too am proud of my association with the continent, and with the family ties I now enjoy there through my Kenyan wife, whom I met in Rwanda. We visit Kenya every 2-3 years, and I usually try to fit in a few days in Rwanda, catching up with my friends and also the school children that I helped to educate, who are now adults and contributing to the continuing growth of the country. I truly enjoy bringing my experiences to people there, and carrying their often positive outlook on life back home with me, dispelling the "dying child" image wherever I can. I also see another spell of living on the continent in my future, either through work or retirement; it really is a fantastic place.

Thin Slicing

When trying to wrap my head round something that is vast and scary, I have started trying the idea of 'Thin Slicing'. Asked for a super-super-summary of most of the reading I have done on happiness and learning, I would say the two key things are (1) create space, and (2) create meaningful connections. We remember things when they are meaningful to us and we have the energy and time to chew. Things are meaningful when they are connected to other things that matter to us.

Thin Slicing involves looking at just one aspect of something, and then looking widely to find how that connects and relates to other things. Same aspect. The Kevin Bacon game, but for ideas. Instead of figuring out how many degrees of separation between an actor and Kevin Bacon, you take something that doesn't seem to matter to you, and find how many connections that do matter to you there are, to get to that idea.

School always used to be divided into subjects. Ideas divided into folders. People divided into tribes. That never worked. Things get fuzzy. Tags or Labels for connections are far more powerful. They allow for us to connect dots and make division obsolete. That is the heart of creativity.

Thin Slices

Drop the An

I am on route to Newcastle to watch South Africa play Scotland in the Rugby World Cup. Last night I watched 'Hector and the Search for Happiness'. I had to place large chunks of its generic summary of world cultures in its 'Bull Quota' box. China = Money Culture + Monks. Africa = War Lords + Rural Families + Safari. Ignoring that, there were some interesting bits. One was a tweak of a common idea. Happiness is an emotion. Happiness is emotion. Drop the an. Rugby sometimes makes me very sad. Perhaps that sadness is happiness.

Given the choice, I wouldn't undo the experience of a few traumatic 'they shall not be mentioned' punches to the stomach sport has delivered. Bats being dropped. Balls not being kicked out. Silly silly rain. These moments are awful. 

If happiness is emotion, it includes being afraid. Being sad. Being lonely. Being homesick. Being irritated. Being angry.... And being excited. Being grateful. Being loving. Being loved. Being World Champions.

Perhaps happiness is being. I wouldn't change past punches, but please Bokke... be Scot beaters today!

Virtue

'Virtue is excellence at being human'. One of the advantages of looking at happiness as the cultivation of virtue is a real sense of empowerment. If happiness comes from virtue, and you can train yourself towards a virtuous life, then happiness is a choice. Virtue becomes the ability to act 'at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way'. Ancient cultures personified, and deified, virtues to create stories for us to focus on, and think about. A virtue becomes an active foundation for rather than a pursuit of happiness.

'Arete - Personification of Virtue' Carlos Delgado

Celsus Library in Ephesos, Turkey

Thank Your Trolley

When I was a kid, I used to like fantasising about being the winner of one of those competitions where you get to run around a store with a trolley taking whatever you wanted. You obviously get a limited time, so strategy would be everything. Do you head directly for the things you like most, or do you head directly for the things people in general like most? Obviously you only know what you like, but you also have a sense of what other people like because of the price.

One strategy would be to head for the smallest, most expensive things. As long as they aren't on the other end of the store and you waste to much dead time reach them. So you have to aim for the smallest, most expensive things that you can get to the quickest. That is still not enough though. Often small, expensive things are in part expensive because they are new and because they came from a shop and because they come with follow up service. How are you going to resell these items? I once got very excited when I won a big box of stamp pads at a tombola. No matter how talented a salesman I may have thought I was, technology had progressed so that stamp pads were not that common an item of desire.

So perhaps the best trick would be just to ignore getting the most possible, and just run around getting stuff you like? Pile up on sweets. Pile up on CDs. Perhaps the odd ridiculous appliances that you wouldn't have been able to justify. I hear that the Thermomix will change your life. Grab one of those if you can. But if you are ten, you are probably not thinking of what will save you the most time as a factor of happiness. Arguably the single machine to make the greatest contribution to the happiness of the world has been the Washing Machine.

There are big problems with this scenario of rushing around. (1) You  are 10. Sweets and electronics probably dominate your thoughts, (2) You are in a rush. You can't slowly and carefully consider all your options with detailed analysis. You have to act. (3) Whatever aisle you are running down and whatever catches your eye will probably win.

I don't think life is different from this challenge. If you watch little people becoming bigger, their emotional intelligence growth is more on display than what is going on in their head. That growth doesn't stop at 18.  Our decisions stay emotional. We have a limited amount of time on earth. Too short to understand everything. We don't have enough time for the things we want to do. There are always trade offs. The choices we get to make depend on luck, the choices that have been made for us, and the choices we have made. 'Revlon moments' are bound to overrule any grand plans you have, ignoring the budgeted self control because you deserve it.

At the end of the day, you just have to remember how lucky you have been to have won the competition. That is already awesome. Smile, and thank your trolley.

Stories that Resonate

A seed of the idea for this blog, and the adventure I am on, came from a friend's wedding a few years back. Ideas had been floating around, but being surrounded by great friends seems to give me the burst of mojo required to connect dots that I know well, but which haven't met each other. How I have spoken about it, what I have pictured, and what I have done has evolved, but it started with the 'Board of Happiness Inc.' The thread that connected it all was my excitement level jumped a few notches, and a sparkle came to my eye when I started to talk about it.

Happiness Inc

I had started Yoga shortly before that which had got me thinking more deeply about what well being really is. There is also a well known link between religion (whatever one) and happiness. A big part of that link is the community spirit that is created. As a kid, I used to go to Church every Sunday morning, evening, or both. On Friday nights I would go to Youth Group. I was (unsurprisingly) quite the recruiter as well, trying to convince people that Youth Group was a brilliant place to start the weekend. One fellow was unfortunate enough to be stuck with me at Art Club, which was on a Friday after school. Despite being Hindu, he was elbow deep in clay and trapped so I persistently tried to convince him that he would still really enjoy getting involved. I think many of my school buddies must have got justifiably annoyed.

The question I later had was 'Can you do the good stuff of religion without religion?'. What Yoga does really well is have places in the city that you can go to regularly, and places outside of the city you can go to renew your energy levels. Churches do the places in the city well too. What most religious place provide is a setting to discuss things that matter to people. There are people there willing to listen. The challenge comes when the stories clash and groups start to splinter. I think this can partly be resolved by allowing people a 'Bull Quota'. You don't have to agree with everything someone says if you treat it like you treat a novel. Rather than shooting down and finding holes and inconsistencies, you listen to the tale and savour whatever beauty it unleashes. We can still get together regularly to learn. We can still get away together to renew our energy.

Yogic Philosophy says that God can not be adequately described. Each person has their own way of understanding the world having come at it from a completely different angle. God, as you understand God, is your Ishvara. Your way of describing God is the closest (but not perfect or complete) you can get to it. This is consistent with the Protestant division of the Christian Church which also believes in personal relationship with God. It also happens to be consistent with my beliefs. I do not believe in a theistic God. I believe in relationships that matter. I believe in the arts - stories, music, drama, dance, our ability to create things of beauty and meaning. I believe in the ability of Science to understand the tools we have to create meaning with. I believe in wonder and awe. I believe in learning.

A Reading Chapel in Helsinki, Finland

So part of my research into 'Happiness and Learning' is figuring out how we can dive into the stories that resonate, but do it together. How can we find space and time to share?

Utegym

Economics is by definition the study of the allocation of limited resources, and as a consequence the production, consumption and transfer of wealth. Almost every word in a discussion of economics ends up being open to interpretation. What is wealth? If production is the adding of value, what is value? How is something limited? What is a resource? The famous two-handed economist will always provide more than one answer. An escape clause that allows them to get out of jail when they make predictions.

For a long time there hasn't been enough. Arguably, there now is. At the very least, we are getting closer to the point where there will be. Again though, what is enough? That aside, all the rules change when there is enough. In a desert land where wealth is determined by water, the discovery of a fountain of life that produces an endless supply of water will level the playing field. Everyone will have enough water. No one will be 'wealthy'. What if there was a tap for other things? Tap Water, Tap Housing, Tap Food, Tap Exercise? What if everything wasn't limited? What if there was only a limit on conspicuous consumption? Everyone can be cultural billionaires.

A common thread in awesome cities is Shared Space. Scattered all over Stockholm are Utegyms (Outdoor Gyms). The ones I have seen are beautiful. Made from heavy wood in the open air, you can do all the things you would be able to do in a normal gym. Thinking about what happiness is can get very philosophical, but it starts pretty simply. What are you eating? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you breathing properly? Are you worrying over things you can't change? Are you putting enough time into the relationships you care about? Are you doing something that challenges you?

And are you exercising? All those things are almost free, and all those things are enough.

The Utegym near my cousins house in Stockholm

Left or Right

One of the aims of this blog is a collaborative study of 'Happiness and Learning' with people I know and meet. So far, I have had around 50 people contribute Guest Posts. I am not looking for people who back themselves as writers or wannabe writers. Rather I am trying to widen the net of experiences. I have also thought of doing Skype/Coffee/Wine/Walking guest posts where I write the post after chatting to people. This can help get over the Picasso Problem people have where we don't do things because we are worried about being judged.

Here is the flaw in my theory. If I had to pick one thing I have learnt over the first year of this project, it would be that the people I know are actually happy already. I don't think we can judge happiness in terms of alternative choices we could have made, or paths life could have led us down. We go through life with a series of left or rights. Sometimes we choose. Sometimes people choose for us. Sometimes there it is a forced choice. Most of the people I know or have met are in the very privileged position of having choices. We can't choose everything or do anything, but our menus are pretty solid. Faced with any situation, we can take the next step. 

The big challenges in the world are not the ones being faced by the people reading daily posts on happiness and learning. I can't even try and write about their experiences by trying to experience them. If I was to live on the poverty line, even for a year, as an 'empathy experiment' I wouldn't even come close to seeing the world through the eyes of people with no choices. I have choices. That year would be a choice. I would know deep inside of the people who are waiting for me. I have a deep buffer of relationships, education and social strength supporting me. It is in the way I stand. It is in the way I walk. It is in the way I listen. I feel deeply empowered and this translates to everything I do. If that is happiness, I am happy. I can move forward.

So can you.

Even my shadow feels empowered

A Thing of Beauty

Because of a habit of bloody violence every time the bossman changed his view (and the evolution democracy), the West separated the ideas of art, philosophy, religion, and science. This allows us to pursue questions of truth aggressively without stepping on each other's toes. I am no historian, but I believe the Romans (before Constantine) initially took an approach closer to the Hindus. Every time a new group of people was conquered, their Gods were 'recognised'. The existing gods often represented virtues or emotions and so they could say, 'Ah yes, we call that god/saint/angel by another name'.

One of the consequences of the later separation, is that Eastern Philosophy is often more holistic. Diet, dance, exercise, breathing, music and every part of what we do is fair game. The study of life and happiness involves everything. The thing that gives me the emotional feeling of elevation comes from the arts. I have just gone to watch 'Last Man Standing' at the Edinburgh Festival. The control these dancers have over their bodies allows them to escape. Along with the music and the light, you are transported to a deeper place you very much recognise. A place you have named.

This was one of those shows that made me want to live healthier. To move more. To feel more. It was a thing of beauty.

Last Man Standing

Chopping Chillies

I love going to restaurants where the Chef comes out to explain the menu. Clearly this doesn't happen often. We love great stories, and the glint in the eye of someone who is passionate about their craft spreads through the tongues of the recipients to the ears of their friends. Soon the Chef will stay in the Kitchen and you will hear about the food from the waiter. We have an innate ability to sense authenticity. We let storytellers break the rules if the story is theirs. If the story is raw and full of flavour.

Clair Whitefield is a storyteller. She is a friend of my girlfriend and I hadn't yet heard her show, but I spent the morning handing out flyers for 'Chopping Chillies' on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. I then headed round the corner to see it for myself. Her beautiful layered 40 minute tale was a lesson in the complex flavours of happiness. It was like hearing directly from the Chef, but what she was letting us taste was what I have been studying with you on this blog.

Her one-woman spoken word show builds up various characters as they experience life with all its complexity. They have their own stories. The stories weave together. And it all comes together in a way that leaves you grateful that happiness isn't just a TV dinner. It makes you laugh. It punches you in the stomach. It holds your hand. It wets your cheek. It makes you sniff.  

It feeds you with the energy and desire to take another bite.

'Chopping Chillies' - Clair Whitefield

The Happiness Project (Megan)

Guest Post by Megan Butler

The gauntlet that Trevor threw down was to define happiness in 100 words or less. While I can do it for myself in 31, it probably would need a little bit more context for anyone else.

I am not an eternal optimist. Part of this comes from years of training to focus on identifying and managing risks; part of this is personality. So setting myself the task of spending 30 days exploring what happiness means to me was fairly daunting but probably long overdue.

My happiness project was simple: every day, I had to write down at least three things that made me happy that day. I set myself two rules:

1.     They had to be things that made me happy not things I felt I should be grateful for.

2.     They could not be the phrased as the opposite of something negative.

Here’s what I learned:

Happiness is not a zero-sum game. When you live in a country where you are surrounded by want and deprivation, it's easy to start defining happiness in terms of things you have that others don't. "I'm happy for a warm bed when that homeless guy by the train station will be sleeping on a stack of bricks tonight", for example. While there is a lot of gratitude in that statement, there is also a lot of guilt. And guilt and happiness are poor bedfellows. Defining my happiness relative to someone else’s want was simply not an option for me.

A double-negative doesn't make a positive. Happiness is not the opposite of unhappiness. Avoiding the negative, at best, will simply secure a neutral result. By only recording the happy moments in my days I learned that true happiness cannot be neutralised by a negative event, or even a series of them. Realising this meant that suddenly the things that used to cause me a huge amount of stress, didn't really matter anymore. Landing up in the emergency room with a banged up shoulder after falling off a step became much less of an issue when I could focus on the gorgeous sunset I saw. Smashing a glass bottle of parsley on my kitchen floor wasn't great but it didn't detract from the happiness I felt from the song playing in my head when I woke up.

You can hold on to happiness. Somewhere in my life I must have stumbled on some sort of motivational poster telling me that the more you try to hold on to happiness, the more it will elude you. In my mind, happiness was fleeting. However, the fact that I had to consciously record the happy events in my day meant that I spent most of the day with them tumbling around my subconscious or recounting them. This alone made me considerably happier.

Happiness is surprising. I didn't limit myself to writing down new things every day, but there was still surprisingly little repetition in my lists. In some cases, there was a novelty element: the shadow my orchids cast on the wall when I was opening my curtains in the morning made my heart sing for all of two days. Sometimes I was just more aware of certain things than others. I'm a creature of habit. I make myself the same breakfast every morning, but it was only a handful of times that my breakfast  made me happy even though I'm fairly sure I do a good job of it every day. Being surprised by happiness on a daily basis has itself been a wonderful experience.

You can make your own. The happiness project taught me how simple it can be to make my own life significantly happier. I used to think that I hated being cold, but three weeks into the project I realised how happy having warm hands made me. Being in the depths of winter in a country that admittedly has a mild winter but where indoor heating is not at all common meant that I was often in rooms for extended periods of time where the temperature was 10-15 degrees. The solution was to carry gloves in my handbag. Having warm hands continued to make me happy even though it was a conscious effort on my part.

Warm Hands, Warm Hearts

Happiness is to be continued. I found the whole project so worthwhile that two weeks after it was meant to end, I'm still doing it. I’m still being surprised, and yes, still happy.

Other Guest Posts by Meg

1. The Art of Non-Choosing

2. We need to talk about Charlie