The other day I was killing some time and catching up on events from the Twittersphere (cool-kid lingo – check!) when I came across a tweet linking to a video about happiness. Now, for those of you who don’t know me, here’s an insight into my teeny tiny brain – as soon as it comes to figuring out life and why people do and think the things they do I’m completely hooked. I’m fascinated by how different things affect different people and the whole psychological aspect of what influences both our everyday and life choices. So discovering TED.com was like discovering a secret stash of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk during a lengthy stint in the USA.
TED (which stands for technology, entertainment and design) is a non-profit organisation made up of two annual international conferences and a bunch of smaller projects dedicated solely to discussing and spreading ideas. No matter what your background, religion or race, TED is about sharing knowledge and inspiring others in order to change attitudes and lives.
Each year at the two main conferences, the world’s most captivating speakers are invited to each give an 18 minute speech on whatever takes their fancy… as long as it’s relative, that is. There’s no chat about favourite family holidays or who should have been voted off last week’s X Factor. The conference is extremely popular and ridiculously expensive, but luckily for us mere peasants all the talks are uploaded onto their website for our viewing pleasure. Excellent if you like to dabble in all things philosophical, not so excellent if you have a life to lead and deadlines to meet. I wrote off almost an entire Saturday because of this site. In fact I was so absorbed by it all that I believe I even missed a meal.
So anyway, this video about happiness had me engrossed from the word go. Over the past couple of years my main aim has been to achieve a good balance of happiness in general life and work, but it’s not something I’ve managed to grasp just yet. As a result, the ideas discussed in this video induced what I can only describe as an absolute headf**k. By the end of it I was questioning EVERYTHING. Is leaving England the right thing to do? Do I really want to do it? Did I really just miss a meal? Oh. God.
This 20 min talk by Srikumar Rao, a teacher, writer and life coach, explains the concept of how people use what he calls the ‘if/then model’ (If I do this, then I will be happy), how it’s flawed because we’re constantly changing the ‘if,’ and thus how we’re ultimately setting ourselves up for failure by using it. This worries me a lot because my whole reasoning for leaving was something along the lines of: “if I go somewhere new, meet different people and follow one of my ambitions then I’ll be happier than I am now, sitting in this dungeon of an office and doing something irrelevant to my life.” But by this guy’s reckoning, once I do all that, I’ll find myself unhappy again and I’m just going to change my ‘if’ to something else, like: if I go back to England and get my dream job, then I will be happy. Ahhhhh! So am I just setting myself up to fail? AM I? I hate this website.
Mr Rao explains that the reason the model is flawed is because people do not accept the world for what it is. When you see a rainbow you stand back and admire it, you don’t stand back and say “that’s a nice rainbow but it would be better if you moved it a bit to the left and that tree wasn’t blocking part of it.” Which is exactly what we do with life… “I’ve just got my dream job but it would be better if it didn’t have a one hour commute” … “My boyfriend bought me some beautiful earrings but I wish they were the ones I pointed out to him last week.” We say stuff like this all the time.
As for accepting the world for what it is, I’m a little confused. During the several months after I graduated I definitely didn’t accept the world for what it was, but then that was hugely influenced by other people rather than my own judgement of situations. After that, my only way of digging myself out of the disaster that was 2009 was just to accept what was going on a roll with it, even though I was far from happy. Back then I was definitely guilty of using the ‘if/then model’ – if I get a job then I will be happy. Well, we all know how that’s worked out… But then on the other hand I don’t believe we should accept what happens to us just because that’s the way the world is. Yes, you can apply it to mother nature – rainbows are great and hurricanes are bad but either way there’s nothing you can do to change either; but when it comes to what we do with our lives surely it’s up to us to accept what we do or do not settle for? I’d rather strive to achieve my goals than sit back, accept my bad luck, wait for something to happen and then regret all that I didn’t bother trying for.
But Srikumar Rao reckons there’s still hope. Apparently the way to combat this flawed model is to invest in the process rather than the outcome. That way if the process fails then it doesn’t mean you’ve failed to meet your goal, just that you need to try a different method of reaching it; and I think that is more appropriate to me. I don’t believe that moving will miraculously solve all my problems and make me happy. If anything, it’s going to be one of the hardest challenges of my life. I need to make new friends, find somewhere to live and find a job, and do all of it on my own. Even though I have a visa I’m fully expecting it to be just as hard, if not harder, than finding a job here in London. I know there’s every chance I may fail, end up travelling until my money runs out and return to the horrible job market and recruitment agencies of London with my tail between my legs. But at least I’ll be living. Ultimately, all I want to do in this next year is challenge myself and prove to myself that I’m not totally worthless as a human being – like I was made to feel in the months after graduation.
I suppose the biggest issue I have with this ‘if/then model’ is that I can’t focus on the outcome because I don’t really know what it is I’m aiming for. I have no idea what’s going to make me happy which means I must be investing in the process rather than the outcome… right? All I know is that I want live abroad for a bit and I enjoy writing so that’s what I’m going to do. Writing this blog is all experience and, even if it’s not a paid profession, one day it may help me in some way.
So that’s that. Analysis over. To be honest I’m not really any clearer on the matter so I’m just filing it away in my brain as ‘food for thought.’ Maybe you can make more sense of it…
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