Tag Archives: happy

Do something lovely for yourself this Valentines Day

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This Valentines Day, why not do something good for yourself – instead of swallowing the marketing bullshit whole?

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Love is in the air

There’s an adage that says you can’t love someone else until you love yourself.

But this adage says nothing about being obsessed or dependent or hopelessly devoted to someone else before you love yourself, does it?

And look around – there are so many dysfunctional relationships in this world aren’t there?

Just look at the Catholic parishioners who lust after their priest …

… The priest lusting after their altar boys …

… And the altar boys lusting after Minecraft characters.

Luckily, you don’t have to be in a dysfunctional relationship to show yourself a bit of love.

Here’s how:

 

Give up smoking: This is easy once you get over the anger, depression, physical agony, obsessive day and night-time dreams, rages, suicidal and murderous thoughts, etc.

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Not sure he loves himself enough to cut down on his drinking

Cut down on drinking alcohol: This is easy as long as you can put up with losing your friends and social life, shaking like an ornament during a smallish earthquake and feeling a restless emptiness like the worst form of grief.

Stop eating so many sugary snacks: Again it’s a piece of piss as long as you can put up with virtually constant sobbing, dizziness and pure, unadulterated emptiness.

If these methods sound a bit extreme, you could opt for less ambitious options of showing yourself you care:

  • call a friend you absolutely love, but haven’t spoken to for ages (as long as they’re still speaking to you – and aren’t dead or in a coma)
  • on a cloudless night, just look up at the sky and stare at the stars (but not for so long that you crick your neck)
  • get a dog or a cat (unless you’re scared of – or allergic to – them, and don’t mind proximity to animal faeces)
  • there are loads of other ways to make yourself feel special – they’re littered throughout the http://simlington.com blog. So feel free to look around.

And if you do want to be nice to someone else, why not just give them a hug and say ‘I love you’.

And maybe give the money you were going to waste on a heart-shaped box of chocolates to a charity for refugees, domestic abuse survivors or the homeless – who really do need to be reminded that someone cares.

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Why you don’t need booze, presents or Christ for a happy Christmas

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I love Christmas.

This is weird as I’m not into presents, I don’t touch booze, I’m not a glutton, I don’t like the telly and I don’t do God.

When I was younger so much younger than today, getting a bottle of beer shampoo or a soap on a rope was actually exciting – and not in an ironic way. But why do I only remember the cleaning products? I think we’ll leave that one for my shrink in the new year.

I also really liked Jesus.

Midnight Mass, singing carols and praying were a way of life – not a pissed-up, nostalgia fest. I believed the whole thing – angels coming down from heav’n on a cold winter night that was so deep, trembling shepherds and their equally scared flocks of sheep washing their socks by night, the Virgin Mary wrapping LBJ in swaddling clothes and laying him in a manger after giving birth in front of lowing cattle and the most famous cuckold in 0th Century Middle Eastern literature.

On the other hand – and equally Christmassy – I’ve been known to spend every waking hour for several weeks either side of 25 December  as pissed as a fart.

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I’ve also experienced severe meat sweats while overdosing on TV Christmas specials, downing After Eights dunked in brandy while simultaneously farting sprout fumes and chain smoking the 200 Marlboros I got as a present – and thinking I’m having fun. So much for a typical Christmas Day in the early 1990s.

‘What’s the big deal?’ you may be asking. ‘Most of this sounds like pretty average festive behaviour, TBH!’

Nowadays, I’ve stopped boozing and smoking and I’m not arsed about parties – even political ones. I enjoy eating without the sweating. I’m not materialist. I’ve been kicked out of the Catholic Church on the grounds of apostasy and heresy. And I don’t particularly like Xmas jumpers – whether traditional or sarcastic-ironic, Mariah Carey, Christmas crackers, Santa hats, board games or annual quizzes, tinsel,  smug round-robin letters, Quality St, Advocaat or even the Holidays Are Comin’ TV campaign.

So how come I’m still simply having a wonderful Christmas time?

Put simply, it’s just that – for however short a time – we’re nicer to each other. For a little while, we think about – and even try to help – people who aren’t the lucky bastards we are.

It’s pretty impossible to be unmoved by the humanitarian tragedies around the world – and Christmas makes us think about them more as charities do a great job reminding us about them. And making effective pleas for help.

These campaigns also remind us there are so many people doing good, brave, extraordinary things to make this barmy world a bit better.

The need to give a shit hits home especially hard after a year like 2016 that’s seen a concerted attempt to move the hatred and bigotry of the far right into the political mainstream. And when utter arseholes (even smellier more revolting than the usual ring pieces) have secured some pretty powerful jobs.

So Christmas is a much-needed kick up the arse to give something to people I will never meet in countries I will never visit who face horrors I could never imagine. Or to people I pass on the street every day who also lead lives of quiet torture.

It’s a reminder to stop worrying about the insignificant bullshit that tends to clog our brains and to work out what’s actually important.

So thank you to everyone who’s reminded me to stop and think. Thank you to everyone who is trying in trying times.

You’re my true Christmas heroes. And you’re why I still love Christmas.

Oh and the Christmas jokes

Five ways to make yourself happier if you hate the new Tory government

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If you wish we had a more ‘caring’, left-wing government than the one we’ve voted for, there are several things you can do to make yourself happier.

These don’t involve bemoaning your fellow citizens’ selfishness and stupidity.
Calling people names rarely makes you feel better and doesn’t actually change anything. And the people will still be selfish and stupid – no matter what you say.

Getting drunk, taking drugs, watching live comedy, having orgasms or even eating chocolate are legitimate ways of making yourself happier – but my list doesn’t involve any of these. You can do these as well!

How good is that?

Why not try one of these ways to recover from 7 May 2015?

1. If you wanted the government to raise taxes to pay for better health care, overseas aid or any other issue you believe in, start contributing more from your pay to charities. Either that, or wait for five years to see if we vote for a government that will raise them. You’ll probably feel more empowered if you do something positive now.

2. Join a political party. A 20 year old SNP candidate who’s still doing her university finals will be sitting in the new House of Commons, so it’s possible to follow your political dreams.
Electoral politics isn’t for everyone – I’ve worked for an MP and found the experience terrifying. But you may enjoy it. Why not give it a try? You could be brilliant at it.
And if the mainstream political parties make you queasy, there are others like the recently-formed Women’s Equality party. One of its founders Sandi Todsvik was fed up of being fed up and has even given up her fantastic job on Radio 4’s News Quiz to help establish this party.

3. Start being nicer to people. Smile if someone smiles at you. Hold doors open – even if the person is still 10 metres away and limping. Give your seat up on the bus for someone who’s younger than you. Have a chat to the Big Issue seller instead of avoiding his or her gaze. Little bits of kindness make the giver and receiver happier. They just do.

4. Do something really positive and of immediately huge benefit to others – like giving blood. Giving blood is a lovely way to feel connected to your fellows – even UKIP supporters need blood transfusions in the operating theatre.

5. Find a cause you believe in and find fellow travellers on the road to your own personal utopia. You’d be surprised how many groups exist for all manner of causes and interests. Volunteer at a local hospice. Help kids with their reading at a local school. Pick up litter for a couple of hours a day, like the eccentric and lovely David Sedaris.

If some of this sounds like a call to fill the gaps of an underfunded welfare state, then ask yourself what you’re going to do to make the world better now the gaps aren’t going to be filled by the state.

I’m as gutted as the next person that our society is run by – and on behalf of – a small club.

I came close to some of its elements when I studied at David Cameron’s old Oxford college. They’re horrendous, arrogant and the true manifestation of the ‘entitlement culture’.

But that’s the way things are for now. If you’re disappointed and depressed that the UK has another Conservative government, you can bemoan it and do nothing – feeling both alienated and impotent.

Or you can use whatever motivation, talent and resources you have to make the world a slightly better place today.

I know which will make you – and others – a bit happier.

Happiness and mindfulness: How to train yourself to be happy

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by Simon Henry
@simlington

I’m starting this post with this assumption:

We all want to be happy.

So I’m excluding masochists.

Then again, if masochists get pleasure from being unhappy, presumably they’re happy being unhappy – and therefore just like everyone else. (Actually wanting to be happy – just taking a circuitous route.)

Who knows?

This line of argument is making me unhappy, so let’s move on.

Something that troubles me is that we humans frequently do things that make us happy in the very short term but ultimately make us miserable – or dead – in the medium or longer term.

Let’s take some examples.

Gluttons are happy while the extra pancake – dripping with syrup, Nutella and dulce de leche – hits their taste buds.

Smokers are delirious when a waft of fumes from their first cigarette of the day hits their lungs.

People with short tempers feel much better when they’re shouting at – or hitting – the apparent cause of their anger.

As most of us know, binge eating, smoking and verbal and physical assault have bad consequences.

I don’t want people with weight problems, nicotine addictions or anger management issues to feel like I’m picking on them.

Some of us watch the X Factor while injecting heroin and wearing jeggings.

Ahem.

None of us is perfect!

But we don’t have to put up with these less-than-optimal ways of living. We really don’t. But how?

Mindfulness lets you see what is really going on at any given time – it lets you see the truth and you don’t have to hide away from it.

You can be mindful of the urge to eat that plate of sugary heaven before you stuff it down your gob and continue on your uncomfortable journey to obesity and early death.

You can be mindful of the urge to suck poisonous chemicals into your lungs before actually sparking up the cigarette that will ultimately lead to further cigarettes – and an early and painful death.

You can be mindful of the urge to attack the person who pushed in the queue at the garage before an attack that leads to your conviction for GBH (or serious injuries to yourself if the pusher-in is a karate black belt).

Stopping thoughtless (or mindless) behaviour takes some effort – but it’s worth it.

In order to stop yourself before you do self-defeating, dangerous and silly things, you can train your mind to be aware of what’s going on in the present moment through Mindfulness Meditation.

And once you’re fully trained up, you’re no longer a robot who’s been programmed to act in a particular way – you’re a mindful human being who has a choice of how to act in any set of circumstances.

And guess what?

This makes you happier – because having choices, feeling in control and not dying of lung cancer or languishing in jail are all ways of improving your happiness scores.

You’ll find there are lots of things to choose from for your Mindfulness Meditation Training Course. Here are some things you could choose to be aware of right now:

Thoughts
Sounds
Sensations in the body
Your breath
Smells
Sights

And your awareness can move from one to the other. If you find someone has just farted in the room you’re sitting in, for example, you may want to be less aware of smells and more aware of how your body feels, standing up very quickly and leaving the infected area as soon as possible.

Just choose something to be aware of and see how long you can stay with this awareness.

And when you find your mind has wandered off to something else, just bring it back to whatever you wanted to be aware of.

You should do this even if you were aware of something bad (Nigel Farage on the radio) and your mind wandered to something good (Les Dawson). Actually in this case we’ll take pity on you, let you turn the radio off and allow your thoughts to linger on Dawson, the little Lancastrian legend.

This idea of being aware of what’s going on in the present moment sounds pretty simple.

It’s not.

But it is useful, because it starts helping you to see what’s going on in your mind, rather than being taken down paths you perhaps don’t want to travel.

And the happiness you get from knowing you’re not killing yourself – or likely to kill someone else – is enduring and positive.

I’m new to thing mindfulness thing – having only been doing it for a couple of years.

The best experts I’ve come across are:

Jon Kabat-Zinn
Danny Penman
Mark Williams
Pema Chodron

They’re all excellent in their own ways. Pick one at random, read about them and find out what they advise.

Let’s all be a bit happier. Eat less, smoke less, take less heroin, wear jeggings less frequently – and murder less. It all makes so much sense.

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Copyright Simon Henry @simlington 2014