International Day of Happiness

If we believe that everything we do has to make us all happy-go-lucky, reality will come and hit us like a cold shower. Happiness self-help readers who want everything all cozy and warm will definitely be in for a shock. Still, doesn’t everyone just want to be happy? Right now and forever? But reality, with a sly wink, gives the ubiquitously celebrated mantra of self-optimization a miss, and an increasingly entrepreneurial relationship with ourselves is of little help here anyway.

Unfortunately, luck and happiness cannot be meticulously planned. On the contrary, the safest formula for being unhappy is to constantly think about happiness (and to obsess with yourself). We shouldn’t try to get happiness or life to dance to our tune anyway.

Better to just relax and keep calm. And cheerfully welcome what comes our way – relaxed, curious and open. And just do. Do what is important to us and interests us so much that, at best, we forget not only the hunt for happiness but also ourselves. Flow is what happiness researchers call this mental state of complete immersion and deep absorption. Our feelings, our will and our thoughts are in alignment. We are happy – without even trying. Sometimes even so happy that we immediately switch into a mode with eighteen letters, nine of them Ys. 

Hyppytyynytyydytys is Finnish and expresses the satisfaction derived from gleefully jumping up and down on a bouncy cushion – or at least the pleasure of having pronounced the word correctly.