My first newsletter is out! I’ve titled it ‘A Little Dose of Happiness’, and that is exactly what I want to do every six weeks: provide you with a little dose of happiness, directly in your mailbox. If you missed the first one, write me at jasper.bergink -at- gmail.com and I’ll send you a copy.
You can subscribe to the newsletter here
A screenshot of (part of) the first edition:
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the richest of them all? In 2013, Bill Gates topped Forbes’ annual billionaire list, with a wealth of $77.6 bn. To compare: that is above the annual GDP of about one hundred countries on earth. His wealth is about the size of Oman’s GDP in 2012, which ranked 65th.
‘Underground artist’ Kim Kalan. Photo via the Independent.
Fortunately life is not about money. As an antidote against Forbes-like lists of the rich & famous, the UK newspaper The Independent last week released its seventh annual Happy List. As The Independent writes, their feelgood list contains “100 people who, without thought of personal gain, give back and help others, rather than themselves.”
Again quoting the paper, the Happy List of 2014 features: “a 93-year-old who has raised more than £100,000 for Age UK by dressing as a bee; a teacher who donated a kidney to one of his pupils; the world’s oldest barmaid; the limbless Plymouth man who founded a charity to help other amputees; the London woman who founded a pop-up restaurant that employs only refugees and migrants; a couple who set up a bereavement service for parents who have lost a baby; and the heroic lollipop lady of Rhoose.”
What a great positive and inspiring message! Happiness often lies in small but significant acts of kindness. The stories of the 100 individuals making Britain a better, more beautiful and ultimately happier place. But the people on the list also offer a lot of inspiration. Their efforts are easier to emulate and more valuable to society at large than the efforts of most of the billionares listed by Forbes.
Let’s share some of the most striking stories (all bios written by the Independent). Even if they do not inspire you to raise money, fund charities or volunteer, they’ll bring a smile to your face.
‘Buzzing Fundraiser’ Jean Bishop. Photo via the Independent
Jodi-Ann Bickley: Happiness spreader
A tick bite led to encephalitis and a stroke, leaving this author from Birmingham unable to walk or write. She learnt to write again, and now, via her website, onemillionlovelyletters.com, spends her time writing cheering notes to all those who ask for one. And thousands do.
Jean Bishop: Buzzing fundraiser
Known as the Busy Bee throughout east Yorkshire, 93-year-old Jean began raising money for Age UK Hull 14 years ago after her husband died. She wears a bee costume (made by her daughter) while rattling her tin, and has so far collected over £100,000.
Kim Kalan: Underground artist
Kim, customer service assistant at Caledonian Road Tube station, north London, brightens up the ticket hall with whiteboard drawings. Kim draws up to two a week in her breaks or at the end of her shifts. Her Mona Lisa is among works bringing daily smiles to the faces of commuters.
Colin Marvell: Job finder
After a banking career, partially-sighted Colin, from Hatfield, Hertfordshire, was unemployed at 50. His struggle to find another job prompted him to launch Inspire4Work, a charity that helps the older unemployed gain new work. He also organises soul music events in aid of charity.
‘Fundraising cyclist’ Charlie Simpson. Photo via the Independent.
Charlie Simpson: Fundraising cyclist
Charlie, aged 11, from west London has been raising money for international children’s charity Unicef since he was seven. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, he cycled round his local Fulham park seven times. Word of this feat spread, meaning he eventually raised a massive £260,000.
Robert Williams: Kindness dispenser
Robert helped set up The Kindness Offensive, a group which carries out “random acts of kindness” across London, from delivering Christmas gifts to the underprivileged to handing out chocolate to passers-by. One nominator said Robert has “a real impact” on Londoners’ happiness.
The full Independent on Sunday’s Happy List 2014 is available here.
“At school, they teach you about the capital of the Netherlands, but they don’t teach you how happiness works.”
That’s one of my key messages when I spoke at Radio Alma last month. You can find the show (in Italian) online on the website of Radio Alma.
And if you want the full picture, I already wrote about the interview the week before and after my chat with hosts Rossella, Tiziana and Leandro.
Buon divertimento!
E per felicità ulteriore:
Sorry, for once a post that requires a specific interest – and some prior knowledge – in EU politics. No worries, next week I’ll talk about happiness again.
EU elections! After weeks of tensions built up, it’s over. The electorate has voted across the 28 EU countries. We don’t really know what they have said, but at least we’ll spin it in our favour.
There is a lot you can read in the result, but I would argue that the outcome – a low turnout of 43.09% and the rise of Eurosceptic and extreme right/left parties – suggest voters are not fully content with their leaders. I’ll avoid the discussion about happiness and politics today and just share five stories about the EU elections.
Screenshot of www.deareuropewearesorry.eu
A man possesses nothing certainly save a brief loan of his own body, yet the body of man is capable of much curious pleasure.
James Branch Cabell, American author, 1879-1958
As I’ve written here before, ‘flow’ is one of my favourite experiences. ‘Flow’ or ‘optimal experience’ is a term used by positive psychologist Mihaly Csiskszentmihalyi, the most boring hero I have. With the concept, he describes the feeling you have when you’re so engaged in an activity that you lose track of time and place. Concentration is intense. Your activity challenges all your skills. Your self-consciousness disappears.
Very briefly, I experience such a feeling of flow when I was running the 20 kilometers of Brussels yesterday. It was close to the half-way point in the Bois de la Cambre. I had trained in this park before, and exactly knew where the curves of the road would take me. On a bridge above the street, a DJ was playing music. I didn’t actively notice which song it was, but it fitted the rhythm of my steps. And though I already had suffered the heat before – and would still suffer it a lot more afterwards – at this point close to the 10k mark, I entered my flow and ran effortless. A large smile appeared on my face. I was euphoric.
I experienced, I like to think, a runner’s high.
A runner’s high, tells Wikipedia, occurs when people exercise so strenuously that their bodies reach a certain threshold. A switch is turned, flow is achieved. In chemical terms, it’s created by the release of endorphins during intense workouts. Endorphins reduce the sensation of anxiety and pain and cause feelings of euphoria.
Running 20k on a warm day, like yesterday, is not fun. With a temperature above 20 degrees and a burning sun, I had to take regular breaks to get my body temperature down (I had gotten sun burnt the day before, and still felt a bit light in my head). But when I crossed the finish line after 2 hours, 12 minutes and 19 seconds, nothing of this mattered. All suffering disappeared. I was proud. I was happy.
The body of man, Cabell said, is capable of much ‘curious pleasure’.
Crossing the finish (to the left side, in a Dutch orange shirt). Screenshot taken from a video from the site of the 20k of Brussels.
Only ten days to go until the European elections start!
From 22 to 25 May, around four hundred million voters from Lisbon to Tallinn and from Dublin to Nicosia can vote for the European Parliament. In a year still tainted by the economic crisis, employment and growth promise to one of the most important topics for those people who bother to vote. The campaign is going slow, and at least on the EU level, it is hard to see a clear difference between the lead candidates.
But why is there no debate about happiness in the EU elections?
An economic crisis as the one we’re now gradually recovering from is not only pain. It is also an opportunity to reflect on our policies: never waist a good crisis, as the cliché goes. What is it that really matters to people in Europe? A job and a good income are important. But ultimately, these are a means to an end: living a good life. Well-being, or happiness if you want.
So can’t EU politicians do more for our well-being?
I am certainly convinced they can. And that’s why I call on all candidates, across the entire EU, to campaign on this topic: Gross European Happiness. And my points are the following:
Gross European Happiness (GEH) as a key concept
The most important indicator in the EU is Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Commission collects stats about economic growth, business confidence and consumer confidence every month. GDP is important, but has is limits. Robert F. Kennedy once said that GDP measures everything in life, except that what makes it worthwhile. As an accounting system, GDP has failed. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on people’s quality of life instead? As I’ve argued before, the EU should to use Gross European Happiness (GEH), next to GDP. GEH would be based on Gross National Happiness (GNH) in Bhutan, and help informing EU policies.
Development of a GEH scoreboard
GEH is a lot more complex than GDP. But the Commission has a lot of highly skilled staff. They should be able to grasp what GNH means for the Bhutanese and translate it to European values. They can develop a methodology for GEH, that understand how our economic conditions, community life, free time, (mental) health and education all contribute to well-being. This can be developed into a scoreboard, providing a benchmark on how countries perform – and where they can improve.
A Commissioner for Well-Being
At the moment there are 28 Commissioners, covering a wide spectrum of topics.In one way or another, all these portfolios affect well-being and GEH; for economic affairs, social affairs, health, environment and education the case is most clear. But these are various silos. To effectively make GEH a reality, we need a strong political steer. Therefore, we need a Commissioner for Well-Being to oversee the GEH process, and also to ensure well-being is fed into all other policies.
We could even grant their own Directorate-General; with an administrative French term, it could have DG BONH (Bonheur) as it’s acronym (a bureaucrat is nothing without an acronym). Commission services already assess the impact of their policies on human rights before a proposal is adopted: why not add a ‘happiness impact assessment’ to study whether new policies actually contribute to our well-being?
Education, education, education
Happiness does not only depend on the circumstances you’re in, but also on the way you deal with them. At school, we learn many valuable things, like math, science and history. Though we spend twenty years in education, we learn little about ourself. How does happiness work? In what ways do our brain and our behaviour function? How can you recognise, and prevent, mental health problems? These are important life skills, and schools should pay attention to them. The EU, for instance, could promote the inclusion of the Five Ways to Well-Being into school curricula.
Tell your candidate to work for Gross European Happiness
In 2009, the Commission adopted a policy paper on ‘GDP and beyond. Measuring progress in a changing world‘. Since, it has been silent. It’s time to chance that. Go vote. Tell your candidate what you expect from the EU. Tell them to work for Gross European Happiness. It’s about time that the EU honours the EU Treaty’s line that the Union’s “aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples”.
Last Saturday, I found myself back with a gin-tonic in my hand, dancing to Pharrell’s Happy in the middle of Place Flagey. It was 14.30 in the afternoon, and almost got hit by the vehicles cleaning up the square after the market. Why did that happen?
And as a second question, why did I title this post Serious Play?
I’ve already written before about Happy – the global of hymn of happiness, as I see it – and the many local versions that people all around the globe have made. And after seeing one of not-too-impressive versions from Brussels, a friend of mine decided to recruit some people as well.
Honestly, the result is not amazing. As our videographer backed out, it was shot with a shaky iPhone. All shots were fully spontaneous, without script or storyboard. Though the gin-tonics did stimulate us to move, I’d argue the footage is not suitable for the Internet. (Even in the age of selfies and excessive social media use, real life is enough. Experiences still matter if nobody has given a like for it).
So why am I still writing about this? Well, I think the example serves as an illustration of the importance of play as a force for creativity and joyfulness.
Playfulness stimulates creativity
Being playful is good for our creativity. Children generally are better at this than adults. Men never seize to be children and often are more playful than women. Play is great, because it helps us use our imagination. And those skills are useful to solve problems, as tinkering and experimenting come with play. Unfortunately, this is a skill we tend to lose as we grow up, by saying play is just for children.
As Stuart Brown says, play is a must for creative and problem-solving jobs like designers and engineers (The famous TED talk by Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity is also nice to watch in this context).
Playfulness stimulates joyfulness
Play is fun. Once you stop being embarrassed about dancing on a square, you enter the realm of happiness. Once we decided to be ridiculous, I saw my fellow dancers smiling all the time (it’s not without a reason that ridiculous means ‘to be made fun of’).
And it’s even more than just being joyful in the here and now. It’s proven that play is important for mental health! Psychologists believe (also referenced by Brown) that there some murder cases are associated with ‘play deprivation’. That is, the repression of play by parents can result in depressions or even criminal behaviour.
So to those who say that one who dances in the square is not sane, I will say that insanity must be preferred over repression.
Play on!
Update: the show is available here now (in Italian)
And? Did you tune in to Radio Alma last Monday to listen to my chat about happiness with the hosts Rossella, Tiziana and Leandro?
You might have missed it, or you may not speak Italian, so let me share some reflections. To start, radio is good fun. It’s a very interesting medium. Talking on the radio really forces you to formulate your message in small bits and pieces as part of the dialogue with your host. I haven’t heard myself back yet (I’ll post the show once it’s available), but I think I managed to bring forward my message.
There are two points I wanted to raise. First: there are many things we can do in our daily life to consciously experience personal happiness. Many people think happiness is something magical or secretive. For me, the secret to happiness is that there is no secret. I spoke a bit about the five ways to well-being, as developed by the new economics foundation. Understanding where happiness comes from can help us to stand still for a moment, like I did in front of a traffic light in London, to look around to be amazed of the speed and hurry of all those around us. Often we’re too much in a hurry to realise we are happy!
Second: we briefly spoke about Gross National Happiness (GNH) as a tool to translate these lessons about happiness to the level of society. Countries are prone to focus on economic growth. But maybe GNH is what they should strive for, if they want to creative a meaningful community in the long run.
I also had an interesting exchange of ideas with the second guest on the show, a singer-songwriter and poet called Leopoldo Verona. He spoke about ‘living life in the now’ and about ‘a sense of freedom’ as factors linked with happiness. It made me think about freedom: do we know how to use our freedom? Do we freely choose to spend our time playing silly games on our smartphones or eating fastfood? How can we motivate ourselves to use our freedom in a way that we enjoy more deeply, for instance by writing blog posts or poems and by cooking a so much more tasty asparagus risotto?
Maybe happiness is knowing how to use your freedom in a meaningful way.
But the main thought I took home from the conversation with Leopoldo is a very simple one. He is a poet, and poets have the great skill to forge words together, creating something bigger than the sums from their parts. For Leopoldo, happiness is about living fine moments with those around us. He epxresses that in one word, putting together ‘share’ (condividere) and ‘live’ (vivere) in condi-vivere.
Simply put, happiness is sharing life.
But everything sounds better in Italian: la felicita è condivivere.
In the studio, with Leandro, Rossella and Tiziana.
Update: the show is available here now (in Italian)
Today is going to be an exciting day! I’ll be on Radio Alma to speak about happiness, well-being and my discoveries for For A State of Happiness. The show starts at 21, is in Italian and is called ‘I colori dell’anima‘ (the colours of the soul).
The transmission can be followed on 101.9 FM in Brussels or in streaming online from 21.00 to 22.00 (click the link ‘Radio Alma en direct’).
How do you prepare for such a show? Well, I won’t reveal yet what I will be talking about. Evidently, it will be close to the topics of exploration of For A State of Happiness. I’ll cover both the personal and the policy side of happiness and well-being.
How do you prepare for a show on a topic as large as happiness? As there are so many interesting angles to it, I asked my friends what questions about happiness they would like to have answered. I won’t be able to address all of them, but they do make me reflect for the show. These are some of the questions I received:
I won’t answer them for now… that’s for when I’m on air and for a follow-up blog afterwards.
But thanks a lot to Jakob, Otman, Fisnik, Katia and Isabelle for putting them out there.
Also have a question about happiness? Leave a comment and I’ll (happily!) share my thoughts. And of course, if you speak Italian, do tune in to Radio Alma at 21.00 today!
When we meet new people, why do we always ask them where they work? Why is the place where we work so defining for our identity? And is it morally permissible to be happily unemployed?
These are some of the questions that Konstantin Faigle researched in his film ‘Keep Up the Good Work’. The German original version is released under the more apt title ‘Frohes Schaffen. Ein Film zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral’.
I very much recommend you to see the film. Faigle’s film is a combination of two elements: a documentary about work and a series of personal stories on what work means to his characters.
The craze of work
Let’s start with the documentary. The ‘talking heads’ all underline how crazy our relationship with work has become. From the Industrial Revolution onwards, productivity has risen, and work has become so much more than subsistence. Most of us spend more time at work than we know that is good for us. Have you ever met someone who regretted leaving work early? With smartphones and teleworking, work is more invasive of our free time than ever before. Let me give two examples how serious this is: people who are close to retirement can now get a ‘pensioner’s coach’ or see a psychologist to redefine their purpose and find a way to fill their seas of time. And the Japanese language has the word ‘karoshi’: death by overwork.
According to meme expert Susan Blackmore, work has become a ‘memeplex‘: a powerful social construct, grouping various ideas and concepts that define what work means to us. Work becomes an essential part of our lives and our society. In the movie, German philosopher Michael Schmidt-Salomon even argues that work has become our new religion. In the current system, factories and offices replace the church as the place where we profess our faith.
15 hour working week
It’s absurd that we are spending so much time at work. In the 1930s, Keynes though that in two generations, people would only need to work 15 hours a week. If we were to do so – by distributing work evenly across the population or use increasing productivity to work less and keep output constant rather than to increase our economy, we’d probably have to take some lessons from Tim Hodgkinson, the Founder of the Idler’s Academy on Philosophy, Husbandry and Merriment. Though the clip is not available, the picture below gives an impression of one of the brilliant part of the Idler’s Academy lecture series: staring at the sky. (This clip, on idle parenting, also gives an idea of his style).
Source: Frohes Schaffen / Wfilm
Happily unemployed
Faigle also addresses the question whether it is possible, and morally admissible, to be happily unemployed. In countries with protestant working ethics, like Germany and Netherlands, this is an inconceivable concept. In one of the funnier scenes of the movie, Faigle hits the streets on Labour Day with a Jesus-like figure stating that Jesus was happily unemployed. People seemed to be more upset about the idealisation of idleness than by the portrayal of a religious figure!
Faigle’s movie features some characters that for various reasons (dismissal, freelancer without any assignments, retiree, etc) do not work and thus suffer from a lack of purpose in society. But when they meet of one of Faigle’s more cheerful characters, a ukulele-playing guy working as a part-time mattress salesman, they miraculously start to appreciate life.
It is a nice story, but a bit simplistic. Faigle is right in denouncing our working craze. Having A Career is imperative; work is not just something that provides the income and security to live our life. But Faigle neglects that work also gives us a purpose. Part of our identity is defined by the difference we make every day for our clients, customers, patients, students and colleagues. The labour market in the West has progressed. There is a fair amount of dull jobs, but many jobs do carry meaning and bring about a state of flow. Work can also be a source of happiness. And when it’s too much, just play your ukulele for a bit and you’ll be fine.
