Tuesday 26 January 2016

Surveying Things - Why do I fall for those questionnaires?

I'll admit it to anyone.  I'm a sucker for those tests with names like "how happy are you?", "is your partner right for you?".  I just caught myself today reading partial results of a survey by a Harvard professor carried out on X number of males over Y number of years.  It seems as we get older we prefer quality in our relationships rather than quantity.  Do I profit from reading this result of hours of copious research?  I don't think so.

I mean, if you start analyzing why you're happy, most likely you're not.  Or you're bored, or maybe you're hoping something startling will come up that will change your world.  I think most of us are happy - not all of the time, that would be boring, but most of the time.  So why do we need all these surveys and books on self-improvement and stuff like that?  Certainly they are very useful, they can prod us into admitting that we make this or that mistake.  I have personally profited from reading different books on coping with life's problems.  Almost all of them say the same thing, don't they?  And I guess it just depends on whether you like the author's style.  There's usually a new version of the same thing out every year so something for everybody, right?

Why do we read this stuff, attend seminars, keep journals?  Personally I find some of it a lot of fun.  You can always learn something new.  Do we really alter our personalities, though?  I'm inclined to think that for most of us the answer to that would be -yes/no.  We try some of the methods then we slip back into our old habits a lot of the time.  That's being human.  Besides, there's something irritating about people who refuse to be fazed by anything and have their lives completely under control, isn't there?   It's like visiting someone's home and finding everything in its place, neat and tidy, no dust anywhere and every bit of furniture matches the design of the place.  Wouldn't you prefer a place where the sofa cushions are a bit shabby but your hostess has a story of how she got them?  Or the sofa is wrecked because the kids have been playing on it or the dog likes to sleep there in the afternoons? 

I remember when I was diagnosed with cancer and undergoing chemotherapy I promised myself that when I got back on my feet again I would never ever make a fuss about little things.  Did this noble resolution last?  No, it did not.  I was about a week back at work when I flipped my lid about someone not putting paper in the printer when they'd used it up.  Dooh!!!

I can't be cured of those self-help, what-type-are-you questionnaires and although I don't buy any more self-help books, I do skim through them in the bookshops just to see if I'm missing anything.
I guess nobody's perfect, right?

Thursday 14 January 2016

Winning the lottery

On nights when I can't sleep, I imagine what I would do if I won the lottery.  I start off at the "smallest" amount or around €250,000 and work up from there.  By the time I've divided up the smallest amount, I find it's not enough.  So then I move on to the next amount and lately I find that even if I won a straight million there wouldn't be enough money to do some of the things I'd like to do with it.  I mean, by the time I've given some to children and grandchildren, bought an apartment in the sun and maybe another one near my daughter, there isn't as much left for charities as I would have envisaged.  And all this dreaming doesn't help me fall asleep, either.

Of course we all know that the real riches are good health, good friends and freedom from serious worries of any sort.  We just don't appreciate any of these things until they are taken away from us. Winning lots of money isn't necessarily going to make us happier or more content or so the experts tell us.  A couple of years ago I read about the making of a television documentary - I think it was being made in Germany - where former winners of the national lottery were interviewed about their lives following the winning of so much money.  The consensus was, apparently, that it was the greatest misfortune in the majority of lives and that many of the winners had seen their marriage and/or relationships with their families - children and siblings - deteriorate to the extent that many of them no longer had any contact with close family.  I have to admit that I have not seen this documentary so I can't confirm this.  If true, it is a sobering thought, isn't it?

My favourite philospher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote in his essay on self-reliance "no one can bring you peace but yourself".  He reckoned that you might think that the return of a close friend, regaining your health or a sudden surge in good fortune would make you happy but really you and I need to be happy within ourselves.  I suppose it kind of makes up for not winning the lottery this week - I didn't even come near! - but at the same time I'd like to be given the chance to scotch all those ideas and prove you can really enjoy life with a million or more in your humble bank account. Here's hoping!




Wednesday 6 January 2016

Happy New Year with No Resolutions

Happy New Year to all my readers! 

So here we are, almost a week into 2016.  Soon we'll be accustomed to writing 2016 instead of 2015.  All the excitement of ushering in the new year has long since abated as most people are back at work, schools are open today in Ireland and things will soon settle into routine again.

I haven't made any New Year resolutions. I gave this up years ago when I was still smoking and resolving to give it up, because by the end of the first week of January I was back on the cigarettes again.  I did kick the habit but that was not at New Year and had nothing to do with any dramatic resolutions I made.  In fact, I knew I could not afford cigarettes when I retired and this cold fact together with Alan Carr's books on how to stop smoking were the motivating factors in giving up without any withdrawal symptoms.  And am I glad I did give up smoking!

In recent times I have half promised myself to lose weight without actually going on a diet.  A diet suggests you are going to finish with it sooner or later and return to your old eating habits.  I decided that I would cultivate healthier eating without going into a swoon at the sight of an excess calorie.  So far I have lost around 3 1/2 kgs or nearly half a stone over the past 12 months or more.  I have put on a pound or two over Christmas, no doubt of that.  All those yummy things like mince pies, roast potatoes, Christmas cake and Christmas pudding have taken their toll. The good news is that I can get rid of the excess pounds without too much difficulty - well I guess it's easy enough when all the goodies are eaten, I simply don't replace them.  From now on I will be reducing the food portions on my plate.

In December the weather was so bad - one storm after another - that I didn't get out for exercise as much as I normally would.  I love watching the stormy waves and trekked out to the beach as often as feasible.  I try to walk for an hour a day and will stick to this, weather permitting.  This is a great way of keeping my weight down while enjoying myself at the same time.

So all in all, I feel pretty upbeat about my plans.  While in Germany I bought a few women's magazines which all had more or less the same headlines on the cover :  how to lose belly fat or those excess pounds put on over the holidays and - almost in the same breath so to speak - recipes for chocolate cheese cake and yummy cup cakes.  Which sort of mirrors my own weaknesses and struggles against temptation - when you've finished reading the recipes for low-calorie diets, you turn the page and there's the cheese cake recipe. Life's a bit like that, isn't it?