Day 202: The How of Happiness

In the Toronto airport, I passed a book shop and a book called 'The How of Happiness' caught my eye. I'm deep into 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' (ahem) so I didn't buy it, but the Table of Contents gave away the farm anyhow, so maybe I don't have to.

As I went through it, I thought it would be nice if I could offer you, my dear readers, something other than 'A Month In Paris' as a key to lasting happiness. Its basically a bullet list for a fabulous freaking life as far as I can tell:

Practicing Gratitude and Positive Thinking
No.1 Expressing Gratitude
No. 2 Cultivating Optimism
No. 3 Avoiding Overthinking and Social Comparison

Investing in Social Connections
No. 4 Practicing Acts of Kindness
No. 5 Nurturing Social Relationships

Managing Stress, Hardship and Trauma
No. 6 Developing Strategies for Coping
No. 7 Learning to Forgive

Living in the Present
No. 8 Increasing Flow Experiences
No. 9 Savoring Life's Joys

No. 10 (which warranted its own category) Committing to Your Goals

Taking Care of Body & Soul
No. 11 Practicing Religion and Spirituality
No. 12 Taking Care of Your Body (Meditation)
No. 13 Taking Care of Your Body (Exercise)
No. 14 Taking Care of Your Body (Acting like a happy person)

There's one glaring omission in this list (in my humble, completely biased opinion): CREATIVITY. But if you look again, you could easily apply creativity to most of these activities. Which is what I did in Paris. I coped with stress THROUGH creativity – dancing it the f*ck out (which is also exercise), drawing pictures, writing in my journal. I achieved flow experiences through creative play. The goals I set were purely creative. You see what I mean.

You could probably apply any kind of approach you wanted to this list. Mine's creativity in general, but maybe yours is Advanced Military Operations (random acts of bombing) or Erotic Scrapbooking (savoring your glue stick) or even Career Necking (developing strategies for groping).