What happens to happiness levels when you stop giving a f***

Happiness is a little overrated I reckon. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few years is that our eternal quest for happiness is what often makes us miserable. We never shape up, we never compare, someone always has it better, someone else is always to blame.

Well I call bullshit on that. What makes us unhappy is that we choose to be unhappy. You, and you alone, are responsible for your own happiness. So do something about it.

Our eternal quest for happiness is what often makes us miserable.

Appears I’m not the only one. In her book Happy As: Why the Quest for happiness is making us miserable Lisa Portolan talks about that very thing (and you can hear her talk about it at the Canberra Writers’ Festival on August 26).

She talks about how the idea of happiness has become an industry, one which sets us up to feel more miserable, that’s we’ve become so tied to the idea of thinking of happiness as a slogan and not a state of mind that we’ve forgotten what it’s all actually about.

Am I happy? Yes. But at times I feel the most miserable I have ever felt. Lonely, sad, lost, scared. But how can you feel one without the other? All emotions are valid. One night I’ll cry into my pillow for hours, the next day be flushed by a surge of love when I see three of my best friends walking onto a hockey field, laughing in the sunshine.

Happiness is a series of ups and downs.

Indeed, according to Jonathan Rauch, the author of the latest happiness book to hit my desk, happiness is a curve, one which reaches a trough in your late 40s, before it starts an upward trajectory again. His theory is that life gets better after midlife.

I was discussing the book with a colleague as I drove her home after work one day. We’d both been having problems with our children that week, it’s nice sometimes to vent with other working parents, to realise you’re not the only one dealing with teenagers, with relationships, with careers, with responsibilities, all those things that rarely seem to work in conjunction with each other.

The Happiness Curve: Why life gets better after midlife, by Jonathan Rauch, Green Tree, $29.99.

She could see the light at the end of her tunnel. Of course you’re happier once the kids have left home, she said, imagine not having to deal with all of that. I disagreed. I’ve had a glimpse of what it will be like when the kids leave home. What it means to come home to an empty house, cooking for one, no one to talk to before bed. I think I’ll be a little sadder, if that’s the right word, once they’ve left permanently, and not just leaving every other week.

My theory was, I told her, that life gets better after midlife because you stop giving a shit about what other people think. Well not totally of course, I’d like to think most people don’t think I’m a big tosser (but plenty do, I know that). It’s just that I don’t need to validated by what others think.

If you like me, that’s great. I like me too.

I’m happy because I’ve got two fab kids, who are turning into fab adults. I’ve got a great bunch of friends who sometimes think I’m a tosser but love me anyway. I’ve got a job I enjoy, and it pays the bills. I have my health. I don’t need to prove myself to anyone. The only person I compare myself to is the best version of myself and I know that sometimes I don’t shape up – but that is no one’s fault but my own, and I’m smart enough to know I’m the only one who can change my mindset.

I liked Rauch’s book. It brings hope to all of us who’ve hit what we see as rock bottom. For all those times where you’ve asked yourself “Is this all there is?” the research shows that the answer is a resounding no. If you choose for the answer to be no.

In some ways the book was a little smug. It talked a lot about how things such as death of a spouse, divorce, unemployment, financial instability are terrible for happiness levels. In places, it seemed to leave me stranded deep in that trough.

But he redeemed himself.

“If I had to explain the upside of the U in just three words,” he writes in the closing pages. “The words I would use are these: gratitude comes easier. That is the hidden gift of the happiness curve. It’s worth the wait.”

I know that. I’m a patient lady. I know the best things in life are worth waiting for.

The Happiness Curve: Why life gets better after midlife, by Jonathan Rauch, Green Tree, $29.99.

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