PowerSwitch

Just read a great article, in Ecologist

http://www.theecologist.co.uk/archive_d ... ent_id=768

Would love to know, are you happy?
Do you think we are a lot less happy due to our consumerism/ lifestyle? will PO ultimately bring about more happiness? or is it too late?

hmmm
Tracy

Define happy?

It's a tough one and different people will give different answers.

I'm happy in that I have no big regrets to play on my mind.

Also I know I'm doing the best I can, for the place I'm at, to prepare for the future.

Further, outgoings are no longer exceeding income at the end of the month and so I'm not constantly feeling worried about having to sell up etc.

However stating that I'm "happy" does not mean that I have no concerns about the future. I do.

And I don't believe we will all be happier during the descent from our oil-fed luxurious existance. Perhaps we will have the potential to be happier at the other end of the tunnel.... but I mightn't be around to see that.

So in the mean time I owe it to the ME of the future to enjoy the good times I now find myself in. Not by leading a flash life (my new awareness would not "enjoy" that now) but by making positive changes that I can enjoy taking.

I love planting my garden. I am happy doing this. I get great satisfaction from knowing I'm increasing my skills and that of my family.

I may be less happy in the future.... but for now I've no reason to be unhappy! Today is good - so I'll honour it with my happiness!

Edit to add..... On the other hand, get me on another day and you might get a different answer!!!!

I can't define happy! The article doesn't either. I think you have done a good job!
I agree that we won't find the change a happy time, especially as most people will be suffering.

I love the 'be happy today' idea. Tom H in his How to Be Free book, likes to redefine work and play. Well, he says we should only play!!

Really helped this week when I started supply teaching - I went in with the thought
'today, I am playing at being teacher' - great way to start the day.....

Other days I play at planting food, making paper, etc.

works for me right now!

Tracy

That's a lovely notion... what made me happy today was reading my 5yo daughter the next bit of 'The Little House in teh Big Woods' by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Shooting game, butchering the hog, smoking venison, harvesting and storing pumpkins and squashes over the winter, plaiting onions... all things, or close to things that my lass and I have done or tried. She was so excited - 'just like us!' she cried.

It made me smile.

Tracy Pepler wrote:Just read a great article, in Ecologist

http://www.theecologist.co.uk/archive_d ... ent_id=768

Would love to know, are you happy?
Do you think we are a lot less happy due to our consumerism/ lifestyle? will PO ultimately bring about more happiness? or is it too late?

hmmm
Tracy

The research that has been done into happiness tends to show that happiness depends more on your own self-delusions and in having goals to achieve.

As for me, generally I?m happy. I see PO and GW as an opportunity to think about what kind of society we live in and what kind of society we could live in. Also about how we can move from now to something better. We do have the capability to make a world that is better than this one.
It?s a nice sort of problem that appeals to me

However, today I?m a bit down. Lack of sleep is getting to me at the mo.

Happiness can only be described and experienced in relation to its opposite, "sadness" or whatever you care to call it. So I don't think happiness is possible without unhappiness. We have to have both. What's relevant is how often and especially how rapidly or unexpectedly do we find our moods swinging from happy to unhappy.

I'd like to answer 50/50 to this poll, but I'll have to choose "It depends" instead!

Great thoughts.

As a basically impatient and prone to lazyness person, I am working hard to change! I was a full time and kind of stressed and tired teacher, and am working hard to get myself out of the mind set that time is short, that I need to rest and sleep and to remember that I am no longer stressed! Sounds weird, but I got so used to being that way, learning that I am not under that pressure anymore is taking time!

Anyway, what I am working on is being happy! I walked a mile to a shop the other day to buy seeds, they didn't have any. I would normally have been fuming at the 'waste of time' etc......... but instead, thought about how much I enjoyed the walk and what I would see on the way back!

I agree that having goals etc does contribute to our fulfillment and we all know that those goals are not a bigger house, up the career ladder and the latest gadget. How much nicer if our goal is to have more friends who live locally, or to get a bigger pumpkin next year!

I guess this is all what my faith teaches me..... enjoy today, tomorrow has enough worries, be happy with your lot etc. Not tosay that some of us are having a tough time, with other things, but that most of us are incredibly well off....... We don't need to listen to the adverts that tell us we need more.
Sorry, preaching to the converted here so to speak, just working it through myself. Slow down and enjoy the walk!

Tracy

Sally wrote:Define happy?

How about "the absence of depression"?

I may look happy, sometimes feel happy and often enjoy people I am with or things I am doing but these days, no, I am not happy, not truely deeply, satisfyingly happy because knowing more truth about our human condition denies me so much hope.....

You guessed it, I answered No. Crazy old world, can I move do you think?

Hi Pippa
Sadly, I believe moving is not allowed, I think moving our minds is the closest we can get.

I wonder if you have hit the nail on the head..... hope. Is that what we need to be able to be happy? that - and knowing we are not alone.

Tracy

Hi Tracy

I love Tom Hodgkinson's book too. Brilliant and definitely good for one's mental health.

As for happy... well I answered 'Depends'. Usually I'm a pretty happy bird - I guess because I have tried to set my expectations to a realistic level i.e. I don't want the latest car / house / gadget / payrise (delete as applicable) as I know that's just a sideshow to what life is really about, and instead, like most of the folk on here I try to find joy in the simple things (is it possible to get a high from baking bread?!) and from experiences rather than possessions. But sometimes I get down with work - I work in climate change, calculating carbon footprints and trying to point companies in the right direction - and omigod it really is rather like banging your head against a wall on a regular occasion. Which is a similar refrain to that I encounter when talking with some folk about PO - the one's that just 'can't compute'. GAH....

My rules for happiness for my life have evolved by trial and error and are only two - 'What you think - you become' and 'Love people and use things, not vice versa!'

Hope everyone is enjoying this lovely sunny Friday.

Love

Cat x

I am content in my misery.

Or to put it another way, I am happy with my lot. It could be better I suppose, but - it could also be so much worse.

cat.wasilewski@gmail.com wrote: 'Love people and use things, not vice versa!'

Good one.... Haven't heard it said before.

Before I got into researching future trends, and finding websites like this and reading the Mogambo Guru (he makes me laugh while describing financial meltdown every week), I did a bit of research into the positive psychology movement. Definitely worth looking up in the library - Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman.

Some of his advice - be future minded, have no regrets, don't be overly materialistic. Play to your character strengths. Have a sense of community, belong to clubs, be creative, and above all, try to be generous and help people. It really works. Try to avoid shortcuts to 'happiness' like TV and booze, they often have depressive qualities.

Alain de Boutton's Status Anxiety suggests that bohemian types are the happiest. For those that recognise happiness in simple living, Henry David Thoreuau had all this worked out well before the Oil Age in Walden.

Also, take a look around John O Andersen's www.unconventionalideas.com. I've had the privilege of meeting him when I travelled to Oregon in 2005 - a really nice guy - he rejected a military corporate existence, though, like me, he's still addicted to world travel! His career guide on Lifelong Semi-Retirement http://www.unconventionalideas.com./semi-ret.html is excellent.

Another good site worth a look is www.anxietyculture.com - this offers amusing counter-corporate views.

The big shock when realising peak oil's implications - some genuine anxiety there - can be so much reduced when we appreciate that a less hurried and more content existence is also the only solution. Seems to me that much of our oil addiction is on the false premise that consuming all this stuff and hurrying here or there actually makes us happy.

I'd rather be walking the dogs.. Final thought - when I was at Crufts yesterday, I saw an athletic labrador on an electric treadmill. A bargain at ?1250! It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been generating rather than using power... Dog powered TV...!

Do you think these approaches to life describe your typical concerned thoughtful and 'happy' Peak Oiler?

Someone very clever once said to be truly happy you need to be enthusiastic about something. I think they were correct.

That said, I'm happy also because I already have my 'Lifeboat' set up for my family for possible scenarios post PO. I just need to put the finishing tweaks to it; like find an appropriate woodburner.