I’m with Brendon O’Neill. My happiness – or currently, the lack of it – is my concern and no one else’s. I don’t need a 10 point plan to make me happy. Securing a satisfying job – or contract – along with clearing the debts left by the collapse of the previous one will be a good start. But that’s just me. In little ways, holding a cat or watching my garden flower into vivid summer colour will bring moments of pure joy into my life. Again, that’s just me. Others will have other motivations, things that make them happy. We are all different. Which is why as O’Neill points out, the 10 point plan put forward by Action For Happiness (sick bag anyone?) is utterly banal. Of those ten points, most of them leave me cold and would do nothing to make me happy. Indeed, they would make me decidedly unhappy. That’s if you can find anything of substance underneath the management speak. All it needs is some clear blue sky thinking out of the box while touching base and they’d have a complete set. This also assumes that being sociable is a path to happiness. For the extrovert, this may be true. For the introvert, solitude in some wild, lonely place where the only sound is the call of the birds does the trick. Happiness is an individual thing. There are no formulae.
So, look, you… If you want me to be happy, just stop lecturing me on how to be happy and let me find my own path, okay?
My thoughts precisely. I’m pretty sure Leg-Iron, who certainly sounds happy enough on his blog, would run screaming from all 10 of these silly ideas. Can’t really see him connecting with people he has lost touch with or joining a club.
The simplest thing would be for everyone to just fuck right off and let people get on with their own lives as they see fit. No quango money in that though…
I’d run screaming from them as well and when not in the current situation, have been content enough. I’m an introvert, so find happiness in solitude.
Totally understand. I’m pretty much of an extrovert, so some of those things do resonate with me, but I have good friends who could not be more different. How can a 10-point plan work for everyone when it fails horribly for about half my closest friends.
I think there is a group of people that are almost becoming a different species. It’s these people that churn this shit out, I think they believe it’s the truth. Reminds me of movies and books (mostly sci-fi) that seemed miles from reality at the time. They seem less and less ridiculous now.
But these ’10 Secrets’ are not secret any more.
That makes me unhappy, the bastards.
In Australia, they’re even being told now they can’t buy rounds for their mates. It’s an epidemic.
Holding a cat? That wouldn’t make me happy.