3 things I’m doing to be happy
None of which involve spending money
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I’ve learned a lot about happiness through being sad. Maybe that sounds obvious, but it feels revolutionary whenever I get those lightning-bolt moments of understanding about what it means to be happy. I’m convinced that my periods of hardcore melancholy - whether over the loss of a friend to suicide, my father’s cancer diagnosis, or the breakdown of romantic love - have encouraged me to savour happiness more—to focus my gaze on it, rather than letting it blur serenely but lazily into the background.
Last year, happiness was scarce. It skirted around me like a patch of sunshine I could never quite reach. I found myself bargaining with no one in particular: please, let me be happy again, let it miraculously burst into my life and cling to me forever. A childish wish, considering Dad still has cancer and grief never goes away. In late December, however - when faced with another year of the same - I decided it was time to take a more adult, proactive approach to happiness.
Again, perhaps obvious, but learning that happiness is not a destination has been the cornerstone of my education on how to be happy. We don’t land on happiness and stay there, nor is happiness a long-guarded secret we finally get to hear. Much more mundanely, happiness presents itself here and there in amongst the daily slog. And while it will usually feel like a fleeting pattern of sunlight against an eyelid, every now and again, it will be blindingly bright.
While I’ve also learned that sadness can’t be eliminated through happiness (sadness is an inevitable part of a love-filled life), there are things I can do that will ultimately bring me more opportunities for joy and allow that blinding brightness to last a little longer when it comes.
So, with all that in mind, here are a few things I’ve been doing lately to invite more happiness into my life.
Saying yes to things I don’t immediately want to do
It was 5 am when my alarm went off, reverberating off the pitch-black walls. Like I knew I would, I had completely forgotten why I’d set it. I’d been out for drinks the night before and felt completely disoriented until the pearly light of the moon through my open curtains reminded me; I’d promised my friends that I’d get up early to watch the lunar eclipse with them. In that moment, warm in my bed and vaguely hungover, the idea of facing the outside world at such an hour felt grotesque. Besides, I could see the moon perfectly well from my bedroom window. Couldn’t I just reset my alarm and have a quick peek in an hour’s time?
I lay back down. Dangerous. Then almost immediately ripped back the covers. Today, I was going to make the effort. I wasn’t going to let a happy experience lose out to an ordinary one. I got in the car, met my friends, hiked up to the top of a huge peak in West Sussex, and watched as the sun rose from the morning mist across an interrupted moon. The experience was quite literally euphoric. As an elderly man walked his dog nearby, he beamed at us and called out, “And to think, the rest of the world is still in bed!” I wanted to yell back, “Yes! And it was so nearly me!”
Doing things for the plot
“I feel like you don’t have many regrets,” a friend said to me the other day (someone was commissioning a piece on mistakes and regrets in a lifestyle publication, and we were wondering if I had an angle to pitch). “Everything you do is well-thought-out.”
It’s true that being chronically indecisive means I think through every decision I make to an unnecessary degree. And while this has left me with few regrets, it does also mean I can be overly careful and miss out on some of life’s more cinematic moments. So this year I’ve been doing things - as the internet says - for the plot.
I’ve sent risky emails, put myself out there, reached out to old friends, attempted difficult physical challenges, and tried out new hobbies. And, so far, still no regrets! Certainly some elevated heart rates and fight or flight situations, but ultimately, it’s made me happy to live slightly less carefully, and more cinematically.
Investing in my friendships
Okay, this is nothing new, but it’s worth emphasising how instrumental my friendships are when it comes to my happiness. I’ve just finished reading
’s book, Love in Exile, and was really moved by the way she described the love concept of philia, otherwise known as friend-love:“I have never felt truly seen for who I actually am in a romantic relationship to the same degree as I have in my closest friendships. As I reach my late thirties, the chasm between how men I become involved with romantically behold me, and how I am truly seen in my intimate friendships remains wider than ever. I compare past lovers to my friends, and the lovers are left wanting. I can’t be sad about this. I am someone for whom philia may indeed form the substance of the greatest love stories of my life.”
Compared to my lovers, my close friends will always have the unfair advantage of knowing me for almost thirty years. They have an understanding of my psyche that has been gained through intimate conversation, held over decades, and forged out of an unrivalled trust and sisterhood. But rather than feeling sorry for myself (or my former flames) that my romantic life may never match up to this, I’m increasingly grateful that I have the sort of philia that can lift me from despair and constantly remind me that, as long as they exist, so too will happiness.
Grief when a very close friend passes is one of those things that you never really understand until it happens. Once you get past the initial intense phase, that lingering grief is so brutal in its persistence. But, as you point out, you do hit a point where you can make deliberate choices to try and be happy.
So, bravo for actively choosing happiness.
beautiful. well written. loved it.