I just finished a great book by Justin Cartwright called 'The Promise of Happiness' that is set half in New York and half in Cornwall.
I then became involved a long, loooong conversation about happiness, fulfilment, humanity, how our race has changed what we define as happiness, the difference between happiness in developed Western nations (i.e. USA and England) and poverty-stricken countries.
The people I live with are great for this. I talked for several hours with Bholi, who was born in Nigeria and grew up there but has lived in the USA for a lot of his life. Now every time I speak to him, I learn of something else that he has done with his life. He's a young guy, a few years older than me maybe. He's currently a chef at 'Boulud', which is a v. schmancy NYC restauraunt patronised by the likes of Cyndi Lauper and Michael Douglas, among others. He gave his notice and he finishes in 2 days' time, after which he may take a year out and go travelling, he may go to Nigeria where his grandmother has a job for him running a school, he may go to Portland, Oregon to play the guitar and be in a musical community. Previously he has studied philosphy, computer science, film, cooking apparently, he almost joined the Navy (it was that or cooking). He island-hopped in Hawaii, ending up in Maui staying with a local guy on his marijuana farm. He once drove to California from Syracuse NY. It took him 50 hours of non-stop driving. He only stopped for a couple of hours sleep when he began seeing little green and tall silver men at the side of the road. Well, actually no - when he saw those, he kept going. What made him stop was seeing King Kong jump off a cliff in New Mexico and cross the road in front of him.
Bholi pretty much knows everything about everything - anything you reference, he goes 'oh yeah, yeah. Have you seen...' and drops in loads of biopics, documentaries, books, movies. Listening to him and Joe (Joe is our resident cynical funny guy who sleeps all day and likes to drink) is great. I learn a lot. They just bat information back and forth, backed up by all these things they've seen or heard.
Anyway I digress - my original point was supposed to be about the nature of happiness. The reason i mentioned Bholi was because in that one conversation yesterday, I learned that
really, you should just do what you want. He drove to California the day he finishes his finals, missed his graduation, because he wanted to be in California. And when he was there he had an amazing time and replenished his supply of inner joy, so it was completely the right thing to do.
This makes me think of another point that was brought up by Velvet and is reinforced by my own experience of coming to New York this year. She said she read a book where the advice was not to spend ages thinking about the action and working out the best way to make something happen, as that just delays the action. Take the action, then figure out the details once you've done that. Case in point: Me, all of last year 'I'm going back to New York, I'm going back to New York'
Everyone I know: 'When?'
Me: 'When I have enough money/found a place to live/know what I want to do there/find a job/learn quantam physics/grow antlers out of my shoulders'
Everyone: 'When are you going again?'
Me: 'Convoluted excuses...blah blah blah...I have no idea...'
Me on the phone to Ellie one day, after I'd almost completely lost hope and thought I'd never get back here: 'I really, really want to go back, I miss it, I love it so much but I have to stay here because of money and because of jobs and because of people and because I have convinced myself that it is my responsibility to stay for all these things'
Ellie: 'You should just book a flight. Then that's it, you're going and everything else will have to fall into place.
Me: 'Hello, is that Flights to New York? I'd like a flight to New York please.
And here I am. The only thing stopping me from getting to New York...was me/fear. But taking the affirmative action of booking a flight, on the stellar advice of such a fantastic friend, was what changed all of that. And yeah actually it was scary when I booked the flight, proving all along that fear had been a big factor in my not doing it. Now I'm here and having such a great time and feeling good, very single day, which isn't something I could have said even just a month ago.
Lesson one: Taking affirmative action and making the first leap = the way to achieve goals.
The other thing I learned from Bholi is that nothing is forever. Now I've given this advice to quite a few people in my life, yet don't seem to have followed it too well myself. Actually, you can change your life. If you study computer science, as he did, you are not automatically manacled to that as a career your entire life. We have options, these days. Anyone can be almost anything they want. And if you can't choose what you want - do it all. Life is the longest thing you'll ever do, and if you are lucky enough to be in good health and fortunate circumstances like myself and so many others, you'd be silly not to give everything a go. You can work the first few years of your adult life, at any point in time you can decide to travel for a year - the World will still be going on when you get back. You can go back to college or University aged 50 if you so desire. It's a pretty limitless time we live in. So, I hope I do get to spend time in Canada, New Zealand, Jamaica and Scandinavia. After that I will train as a counsellor. Then I will open a vintage clothing store, with a bakery attached. Then I will start my own dance company, do a Degree and Masters in English, write for music publications and newspapers, star in Hair the musical and learn to spin firestaff. Why not? All so very within reach, when you think about it. And while there are plenty of obstacles that may arise, if you want something enough, you'll get it. It's taken me a long time to take that on board - how many obstacles did I imagine up for myself before I jumped ship and ran back to New York? But I really wanted to be here, so I either climbed over them or blew them to smithereens.
Bholi told me about this lecture on Youtube given by Randy Pausch. I seriously recommend watching it. It's the last lecture he gave before he died. Go to youtube.com and type in 'Randy Pausch - achieving your childhood dreams.'
From this lecture I take Lesson 2: Brick walls are there to let us prove how badly we want something*
(And my own personal footnote *If you're trying to get over those brick walls, you probably don't want it badly enough - and that's ok. You should not feel guilty for giving up on something if it's something you're not truly passionate about. That would be stupid because if you guilted yourself into sticking with it you'd end up spending all your time fighting to achieve something you don't actually want to achieve...which would be a total waste of a life. Obviously.
Guilt is another point over which I have mulled extensively. I and I'm sure many others feel guilty multiple times a day. If I don't reply to messages straight away, if I eat a whole bag of potato chips in one go, if I sleep late, stay up all night, don't cook myself proper food, don't understand when people discuss politics/classical composers/arthouse films etc etc.
Guilt is not a productive feeling. Feeling guilty about little things like the aforementioned is mostly just futile, as guilt does not change any of these situations, but it does cause me to lose time during my day feeling bad, time which could be spent otherwise engaged. Feeling guilty about bigger things, like world hunger and the environment, is equally pointless because again, it does not give you any power to change what you feel guilty about. The only thing guilt is good for is helping you realise that there is something that needs changing because it inspires a negative emotion. It could be the thing itself needs changing or it could be your outlook that needs changing. When the guilt appears, I think the best thing to do is acknowledge that it has done so, then let it go completely and concentrate on making the necessary changes, so that the guilt will never bother you again.
Hmmm. A big component of happiness is laughter. I'm a big laugher - if something tickles me I'm off and generally incommunicado for a good few minutes. Right now I'm surrounded by really funny people (some intentionally, some less so) which means large portions of my day are spent wheezing and spluttering with mirth, which is fun and raises my happiness quota significantly. There's a magical tool at our disposal that is great for this - it's called the internet. If you feel down, or even if you don't, a little time spent on youtube/lolcats/watching Inbetweeners on 40d/whatever makes you laugh, is a great investment in yourself. Or read a funny book. Or watch a funny movie. Or talk to funny people. But just say you don't have access to those things, my advice is the internet. It's hilarious.
Lesson 3: Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Also took this from Randy Pausch. I think it's a great phrase because it is universal - everyone can apply this to something in their life somewhere. With interpersonal relationships, with jobs and career, with school, uni, travel. I didn't necessarily want to get abandoned by the coach on my way to Amsterdam. Definitely was not part of the plan. But I got a great experience out of it, and it was a good affirmation of my ability to deal with unexpected situations (an ability in which I'm not normally overly confident.)
I'm going to try to take this one to heart and I hope lots of other people will too as it's a good mantra to remember when you do get end up somewhere or with something that you weren't aiming for.
My infinite wisom is perhaps not so infinite as I am running out now. It has been good writing this post. Let me finish by saying thank you to Ellie and Emily for raising my happiness quota for the day when their drunken texts made me laugh. And also NAMASTE
Yes I've been yoga'd - forgot to mention, I went to a 'hot yoga' (or Bikram) class yesterday with Charles and new housemate Priscilla (Parisian fashion intern) and it was woooonderful. 90 minutes long in an extremely hot room - the idea is that the immense amounts of sweating is beneficial, shedding toxins, keeping muscles supple etc. I really really enjoyed it - it was really tough but being in an atmosphere of intense concentration is fantastic and very infectious. I haven't focused so completely for 90 minutes in a very long time. If ever. And I felt very strong and supple afterwards (largely because Charles was ju
st in front of me. He's a contemporary dancer. I've seen some pictures of his dancing and I can see that he is incredibly strong, flexible, powerful etc so if I'm honest, I measured myself against him throughout the class and I more than held my own. Competing is not the idea of yoga at all but for me it was a very good motivational tool and a good reminder that for all I eat junk and d
o all the wrong things I am actually quite stretchy and strong and tough when I want to be.)
So perhaps my sudden philosphising is born of my new-found yogaic spirituality? Why not.
Peace love and HAPPINESSxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Pffft. WHATever...
Note about yoga: bendy back is a good good thing
Ok.
No comments:
Post a Comment
OH HI commenter!