Thursday, 25 January 2007

Happiness is an empty toilet tank

There's a whole branch of academic psychology (positive psychology) devoted to the study of what best leads to life satisfaction, happiness in other words. Now, I'm all in favour of this, in fact at one stage I was involved with these people myself, but the great thing about life aboard Sanity is that it all becomes much simpler. We have three tanks on board, fuel, water and toilet, and keeping the two of them full and the third empty is one of those themes that runs through our life.

Sitting in the Braidbar yard as we are at the moment, we're using very little fuel, just what the Eberspacher central heating unit burns first thing in the morning, and at the end of the afternoon (to give us hot water for showers and washing up). We still need to keep the water topped up, but there's a hose reel within easy distance, so about every third day we run it out and refill. The macerator toilet normally fills the tank in about two weeks, but we're spending so much time in the Brycelands' house, that it's going to be more like three or four before it neeeds pumpimg out again.

Thus, at the moment, we'd be pretty happy, if it wasn't for worrying about Sheila's Mum, and of course the kids (no matter how big they get, you can always put in some quality worrying time about the kids.)

The real answer to happiness in general, by the why, goes something like this, I reckon. We all have personal skills and strengths, and working out what these are and using them is a great antidote to feeling useless and gloomy. Furthermore, doing things for other people is a boost to morale and self esteem. So.... use your skills and abilities to benefit other people, or in a social cause you believe in, and you'll find that life seems a lot better than it does just chasing money and possessions.

There's a lot more about this at these websites, for those who are interested. The European Network (for academics) and Authentic Happiness for everyone. There's a Wikipedia article, as well.

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