Thought of the day: New Year's Resolutions

Making and breaking New Year's resolutions are a popular pastime.  People resolve to do all kinds of things.  Exercise more, eat better, work harder, bla bla bla.  But what for?

To be happier.

Isn't that right?  Isn't that the real reason that we would put ourselves through the torture of diet and exercise?  (I am of course not talking about all the people who LIKE eating healthy and exercising.  After all, if you're one of those people and you make diet and exercise your New Year's resolution, well that is a cop out, my friend.  A cop out that I, personally, fully approve of, but a cop out nonetheless.)

But the question to me is, will those kinds of resolutions really make us happier?

As I was travelling over the holidays I had the great good luck of having a really interesting conversation with my seat neighbour on the plane.  We were talking about life, the universe, and everything - and how it all relates to medical psychology.  And through our discussion, we concluded the following: living a full, happy life takes a lot of effort.

Now let me be clear.  I have, for many years, tried the whole work harder and be better, fitter, (read: miserable) formula because I bought it when they told me that I would be happier for it later.  Based on my study (n=1, but there are replications), that's bullsh poppycock.  Being miserable will only get you one thing: more being miserable.

The kind of work that I'm talking about here is the kind of work that will get you more being happy.  In other words, how do you work at being happy?  How do you go about living the kind of life you want to live?  Here's a quick list of steps that I have found elucidate the strange process of working towards happiness that avoids the torture-trap of working towards being miserable.

Step 1.  Identify things that you LOVE.  

The basic equation to making sure you love your life is to put more things you love in your life.  So what do you love?  For example, I just bought new curtains, and I LOVE them!  Seriously, I went from walking into my apartment everyday and being dissatisfied, to walking into my apartment everyday and wanting to applaud!  (And I'm not even done redecorating yet!)  It's so small a thing, but it's made such a difference to me.  And that's the important thing.  It made a difference to me.  So what do you love?  Cooking?  Hiking?  Beautiful decorations?  More time with friends?  All of the above and more?  Being happy means you know yourself and you know what makes you happy.  Which leads us to Step 2.

Step 2.  Do the things that you LOVE to do.

Yeah.  I have known that I love sailing for years.  I have yet to take a sailing course.  Why?!  Why do we do this to ourselves?  I mean look at how excited I am over curtains! Just imagine how happy I will be when I start SAILING!  But baby steps.  We all like to get in our own way every once in a while.  That's ok.  (That's  why this is Step 2.  It's harder.)  I say start small.  One of the reasons so many New Year's resolutions fail is that they're too darn big and we are just not ready to make so big a change.  Don't say I will sail around the world, say I will take one sailing class.  Don't say I will become a master pianist, say I will learn to play one piece, and then maybe another.  Don't say I will move into a mansion in another city, say I will buy new curtains.  And then do!

Step 3.  Repeat.
That's it!  :)