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Archive for the ‘happiness’ Category

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Thought for the Day – Anne Atkins

In happiness, what i'm reading on December 9, 2009 at 10:55 am

Anne Atkins’ Thought for the Day yesterday morning reflected on the Young Foundation’s report into the psychological needs of people in Britain today – Sinking and Swimming: understanding Britain’s unmet needs, which dwells on the nature of depression.

We know a great deal more about depression than we used to. It’s an illness – some people get it and some people don’t. In many cases it’s treatable and there are tremendous success stories in how, as a society, we are dealing with it. Still, it’s now reckoned that 1 in 4 of us will experience depression of some sort during our lives. I find that a rather shocking statistic, and a very sobering one when I’m presently dwelling on what makes us happy, not what makes us unhappy.

Through my research into the nature of happiness and from talking to lots of people about what makes them tick it has become clear to me that, for many, the only way to truly understand what makes us happy is to to understand what makes us unhappy.

Anne Atkins thinks she knows where the root of this unhappiness lies in the very nature of society itself. She says:
“Depression is linked to two objective factors: relationships, and material well-being. As society becomes more fractured so we become more wretched. And the greater the disparity grows between rich and poor, the more dejected we become. The way to happiness would seem clear, if not easy. Better relationships and a fairer world.”While acknowledging that the theraputic treatments available for those who are depressed are valid, she seems to suggest that people just need to man up and get over their depression. That tears are good for us sometimes and, as I suggest here, the happier moments in life have to go hand in hand with the unhappier ones.  But I think she’s confusing unhappiness (a state of mind for many) with depression (an illness). She’s surely getting confused when she suggests that to get over depression, all you need do is find happiness. I’m no expert on the subject, but I’m pretty sure it’s more complicated that than.

She quotes Oscar Wilde: “Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.” Depression is much more than sorrow, more than feeling down or simply being unhappy. It’s a chemical inbalance that affects an entire person. Unhappiness and depression are different beasts.

Of course, Thought for the Day is a moment of religious contemplation and yesterday’s speaker seems to suggest that looking forward to a time when there will no longer be any sorrow (I assume she means the end of time for Judeo-Christians) we will have something positive to focus on.

I really don’t agree with her conclusions.  You can read the full transcript of what she said on the BBC website.

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Broadcasting House on happiness

In happiness on November 12, 2009 at 5:49 pm

I always delight in listening to Broadcasting House on Radio 4 – on the Sundays when I’m up at 9am. Or on the podcast.

This week, they are apparently going to be talking about happiness.

They say: “Massive wins on the lottery, or divine views of land with loamy soil for the self-sufficient, or a soul mate by the sea? We’ve a rare insight into a sixty year study in the USA which has been devoted to discover what makes us happy. The answer might shock.”

What can they mean? I’ll be tuning in at 9am on Sunday 15 November. BBC Radio 4: 92-95 FM.

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Russell Brand on happiness

In happiness on October 28, 2009 at 10:11 am

One of the things I’m really enjoying about my research project into the nature of happiness and what it means to us today is that everyone has got something to say about it. Some of what people say about it might be seen academic and high-brow – and the idea is that my book will contain some of that kind of content. But it’s such an emotive topic that there are also some really personal and straightforward responses to the question ‘what makes us happy?’.

It’s a huge topic, and everyone has got something to say about it. That’s why I’m trying to interview people from as diverse a background as possible.

It appears even Russell Brand wants in on the subject. His latest stand up set is called Russell on Happiness and recalls some of his recent experiences of staying in Angola State Penitentiary. Apparently in these shows he’ll be interacting with the audience as he shares his thoughts on the subject, which will be filmed for an ongoing documentary project.

I wonder what the documentary is all about. Will have to investigate …

Wow, that was a fast six months

In happiness, Museum [Insider], Museums, new content on September 30, 2009 at 1:01 pm

So, it’s six months today since I left full-time employment and went it alone as a freelance writer. What have I achieved and what will the next six months have in store?

I’ve realised that I know a lot of things now I didn’t know in April. And they aren’t things I necessarily expected to learn as I went along. That’s what’s been so much fun about this lifestyle I’ve chosen for myself – things change, work (paid and unpaid) comes along and networking is still as important as ever. And the nature of writing for the web is continually evolving as well – new technologies and tools come along. I didn’t even know what twitter was six months ago!

The great thing about publishing quite a lot of online material is that I’ve been able to see the results of my work pretty much instantly, and I’ve also been able to solicit feedback from others about what I’ve been writing. Other projects are yet to be published, but will come into the public domain in the next few months.

A quick summary of my first six months as a real writer:

I co-authored the content for the British Museum’s new multimedia guide (like an audio guide but with pictures, video and interactive games). I also wrote an audio-described tour of the Parthenon galleries at the BM for visually impaired visitors. Both of these will go live in December 2009.

For the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, I’m writing a new audio tour for the entire museum. That’s a work-in-progress at the moment, but I need to move fast on it as it opens to the public in late November 2009.

A lot of web articles have appeared all over the place.  I wrote 23 features articles for Museum [Insider], the online magazine for suppliers to the heritage sector in the UK. There were also 14 new articles for Dulwich OnView, an online magazine about life in and around south London. And using this website as a promotions tool, I’ve created exactly 100 posts – the latest one just this morning.

There were a few random pieces of work as well. I’ve written content for a local film-maker’s website; edited text for the Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery website; scribed some pieces for an international travel blog; chaired a strategic direction workshop for Kingswood House and even edited an academic conference paper on the nature of discipleship amongst the evangelical Christian movement in the UK!

I continued work on my ongoing research project into the nature of happiness and what it means to us today. It’s had to take a bit of a back seat for the moment while I focus on paid work, but the idea is to start firing a book proposal off to publishers in the near future. My research notes find their way on to this website every so often.

Up next, I’m going to be doing some consultancy for a large heritage venue in London – secret as yet, but news coming soon. I’ll be soliciting responses from their visitors about ideas for potential future exhibitions.  The regular pieces for M[I] and DOV will continue as well as some happiness research and there’s some more audio writing in the pipeline. And I’m going to teach a workshop on online wrting for a local school.

What will the next six months yield? Will I have a book deal? Will more people read me?

Who knows, but I’m certainly having a ball right now.

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Craftsmen and happiness?

In Dulwich OnView, happiness, new content on August 25, 2009 at 8:08 am

A few weeks ago I went to Peckham to meet a craft artist called Nic Webb.

He’s been working recently with a huge pile of wood from Dulwich Picture Gallery. The swamp cypress tree there was cut down last year because it was sick. He’s been turning the wood into, wait for it, spoons. So off I trundled to meet the spoon man. And here’s the result – an article on Dulwich OnView.

These aren’t any ordinary spoons. They’re beautifully crafted pieces, all very individual. Meeting Nic was a wake up call to the power of the craft maker movement in London at the moment. He spoke about how the design for each spoon is led by the natural shapes and patterns in the wood – there’s no one design he works toward. Each piece is an individual.

We’re bored nowadays of having mass-produced rubbish in our homes from Habitat. Let’s go back to having hand-crafted, beautiful objects with some integrity. And let’s get to know the people who make these things for us – craftsmen, designers and makers all have great stories behind them and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know some of them of late. I wrote pieces recently about glass designer Sue King and local artist Gail Gosschalk.

I think there’s a bit of an overlap with my happiness project. I suggest we’d all be happier if we fill our homes with objects that have some integrity to them, rather than flat pack furniture and cheap crap from Ikea. Of course, that’s easier said than done – hand-crafted items are usually comparatively expensive. But meeting Nic and talking with him about his work certainly made me appreciate the power of the craftsman once again and I believe it’s a movement worth supporting.

I’m going to look for craft artists to include in the happiness project. Let me know if you have any good suggestions.

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Happy Monday all

In happiness, what i'm reading on August 24, 2009 at 9:45 am

It turns out that Mondays aren’t that bad after all. In fact, they’re the second happiest day of the week.

This piece in The Guardian reports a really interesting piece of research – a long-term study of the content of blogs and their relation to collective happiness. They trawled through a load of content and analysed how ‘happy’ people were by what they were writing. Words like joy, happiness and fun got put in one bracket, while words like sad, boring and loss went in another. And then they looked at not only who was happiest, but when we are happiest. 

There are countless ways of measuring happiness, all of which have their flaws, but this seems like a clever way of indicating happiness on a global scale.

According to this methodology, Obama’s first day in office was the happiest for the world in a while. Interesting stuff. It’s all reported in full in the Journal of Happiness Studies.

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Think happy thoughts (about yesterday)

In happiness on August 12, 2009 at 10:09 am

Research shows that simply thinking about one event that went well in your life the previous day can improve your happiness levels instantly.

Try it. Just think back to yesterday and remember something that went well. It can be quite simple – seeing friends, a good cup of coffee, reading a good blog, or just the weather.

Pyschologist and quirky mind stuff man Richard Wiseman has been writing about this on his blog at the same time as running his ongoing happiness experiment. It makes for really interesting reading. There’s a short video on his site encouraging us to think about nice things that happened yesterday.

Do you feel any better now?

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Eat your way to happiness?

In happiness on August 3, 2009 at 2:32 pm

I find it quite hard to wander the streets of London and not leap for my camera every time I see the H-word.

I was walking past itsu the other day, the healthy food outlet in the centre of London, inspired by Japanese cuisine. Their motto is health and happiness. A catchy strapline, I thought.

On closer inspection of their website, I discovered that their marketing claims:

health – because itsu food is light, full of goodness & won’t make you fat
happiness – because it tastes amazing. You can eat lots without guilt, sorrow and pain.

Hang on a minute. So, itsu food in itself won’t actually make me happy? It’ll just make me not experience guilt, sorrow or pain.

Hmmmm. I don’t really buy this argument. Firstly, I’m not sure whether we’ve actually bottomed out that whole ‘absence of pain is pleasure’ issue. And secondly, there is a certain amount of pain in buying lunch in itsu, as it’s so incredibly overpriced.

Clever marketing, but I’m yet to be convinced that eating a bowl of beansprouts for £7 is going to make me happy. Well done for trying though.

But it does reinforce the fact that happiness is an excellent marketing tool.

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101 ways to feel happy

In happiness, what i'm reading on July 30, 2009 at 8:16 am

There are plenty of these lists of things that make us happy bouncing around the Internet, but I was quite taken with this one, which I discovered today. It’s reasonably self-explanatory:

101 ways to feel happy by motivational writer Annabel Candy.

Also, do take a look at her seven reasons to go for a good walk. I quite agree.

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The Micawber Principle

In happiness, what i'm reading on July 29, 2009 at 8:57 am

The character Mr Micawber in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield is a good source of quotes on the subject of happiness. In the novel, Micawber, an eternal optomist in the employ of Uriah Heep,  is repeatedly convinced that ‘something will turn up’. His name is, therefore, used to refer to someone who lives in constant expectation of a better life.

For example, in chapter 11, he says: ‘I have no doubt I shall, please Heaven, begin to be more beforehand with the world, and to live in a perfectly new manner, if -if, in short, anything turns up.’

A Dickens quote has even given rise to the ‘Micawber Principle’, based on the character’s following observation:

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six. Result happiness.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six. Result misery.”

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