Nov 17, 2023 — Thoughts on Happiness
I’ve been pondering happiness this past week. I’m not entirely sure why, but it’s been kicking around in the back of my mind. The universe even slapped me with it when a video from Veritasium showed up in my feed on the same topic:
If you watch that, you’ll discover that the first, most common and obvious answer to the question “What makes you happy?” is very real: money. So many people think money is they key to happiness. And it helps, I admit — it makes things easier — but by itself it’s not enough. Thankfully people usually go on to mention the actual thing that brings happiness to most of us: good relationships.
I’d come to that same conclusion on my own before watching the video, and when asked “When were you really happy?” I might answer:
- While sitting in the living room in the evening with Anne, the dogs snoring on the floor, as we watch a movie we’ve already seen many times, laughing at the same things.
or perhaps:
- Driving across the country, just Anne, me, and the dogs. Nothing pressing to do, just making time and distance together.
It’s taken a lot of thought for me to figure some of this out. For example, I’ve realized that doing things for others doesn’t always make me happy either, despite “be useful” being the foundational principle of much of my life. Doing things for others can provide a sense of accomplishment which can be enhanced by those people acknowledging my work, but unless some sort of relationship happens between the people I am doing things for and me, it’s not a long term source of happiness. It’s pleasant, and rewarding, but fleeting.
I’m not even convinced that creative work leads me to happiness. I get so judgmental about my own efforts that in the end all I tend to see is a pile of compromises, or worse.
So for me, happiness is time with Anne, doing something we both enjoy, usually something simple. I don’t need a lot of travel, or new experiences every day. Maybe I am wired oddly, but that’s the way it works.
I suspect some of my readers need different things, and I am curious what brings happiness to you. Please think about it a bit and let me know.
Of course, the fact that I am happy doing simple stuff doesn’t mean I don’t actually do other things. And in the past week there were some mildly productive days, but we’ve been getting weather that feels like winter, and being outside is less than fun, even when the sun is out. (Remember last week’s photo of lovely fall colours on Japanese maple leaves? Yeah, they’re all gone now. That tree is bare and it’s been nearly freezing every night for a few days in a row. There is snow on the local mountains, and occasional threats of snow at our home. It’s only a matter of time before I am shovelling the driveway.)
And yet despite the weather I really do need to get outside and get more exercise. Feh.
Putting aside my sloth-like tendencies, I did manage to help a neighbour replace the keyboard in her laptop computer. It’s hard to type with two keys missing and another one tweaked to the point of silliness. A replacement cost only $30 and took just ten minutes to install. Easy.
And in yet another example of doing things for others, I am helping a different neighbour fix two clocks. One just required reattaching the hands to the shafts. The other needs a new movement. The old one was corroded internally — but oddly, not on the battery contacts — and simply didn’t work anymore. Like the laptop keyboard, the parts are inexpensive and the only thing really needed is the knowledge of how to do this stuff. This, by the way, is the same neighbour whose light I worked on a couple of weeks ago. The replacement movement sensor for it has arrived and I will reinstall it soon, probably tomorrow.
Last week I mentioned snuggling down with a good book, and I got out to one of the local used book stores in an attempt to make that happen. I was looking for almost anything by Neil Gaiman, but they had only one copy of American Gods in stock. That was surprising, but I do want to reread AG, so I picked it up. I had also hoped to find some newer Stephen R Donaldson, but they had none of that either. With nothing else in particular on my list, an entire bookstore visit left me taking home a single $3 paperback and $34 in credit for the books I turned in. Moving on to new books, the latest in the Murderbot Diaries just arrived, so that is on tap in addition to AG. Thus, there is some reading coming up, even if I don’t have everything I want.
As always, I am working on next month’s community email, and tweaking the website. That lead to some very frustrating discoveries about WordPress that I have to deal with. Let’s just say that themes can do a lot more than it might seem possible at first blush, like limit the availability of certain page editing options. I know that will mean nothing to most of you, but it set me back on my heels when I learned it. Now I need to find a new theme for our website, and that has all kinds of implications. This is clearly a lifetime volunteer gig.
Sadly, in other ways I have not been at all productive. I’ve made no progress on the next round of house painting, and while I have a very particular idea for the next kind of sculpture I want to try, it is still very much stuck in my head. I really need to get to work on both of those things, but there is an endless stream of trivia, chores, mild amusement, and actual news (largely from the USA) to keep up with. I am busy, but not sure that’s a good thing in this case.
My mother tells me that she used to subscribe to a physical newspaper, and every morning she would read the entire paper over breakfast and coffee. This was in a major city, so the paper was not small. My media consumption is a bit different in form, but it generally involves a lot of time each morning trying to catch up with the things I follow and/or find interesting. I do it via computer, not on paper, but the gist is similar. And these days it takes longer and longer to get through it all. Perhaps I need to throttle back on my sources to make more time in my day. Not sure if I want to make that trade-off, though. Still thinking about it.
Anyway, that ends this week’s musings. Please do let me know what really makes you happy. I am curious. Perhaps there are things I have not thought of that I should seek out. Cheers!