Happiness #4 Don’t live too far from work.

Longdistance commuting is really tiresome. You waste way too much time on board the train or in traffic jam to and from work. The longer the distance the less leisure time you get. Leisure time has a positive effect on the feeling of happiness.

My experience is that you don’t have to have a long distance to work to spend a long time getting there… or back home. The queues are long, trains are often unpredictable, the busses are stalling in the same queues as the cars (unless there is a line for public transit, then the busses gore the same line as taxis and electric cars). Being late for work is one thing, not to get home on time is a different story: That is worse.

The other day I was reading the newspaper about a woman who on commission gives speaches to industry and commerce about how to be happier. She does rather well, maybe because she is so convincing selling her presentation by stating that happier employees are better employees. In the portrait interview she says that when you are caught in a jam at rush hour, don’t get stressed out or let yourself become impatient. You are not getting anywhere any faster anyway. Allow the moment to be a break, listen to the radio or good music and enjoy the recess.

As if! When something gets in my way, which delays me, I know my kids are anxious waiting for me at home. They have places to be and times to be there. The technique of living in the present and focus on the good side effects of events is perhaps excellent… if all you need to worry about is when the 24/7 gym closes. For my part it is a question of follow up my kids; their doings and everyday life.

Running by the clock all day kind of inhabit my person. It stresses me out to be late, even when being late is not a big deal. The thing about stress is that you can’t decide when it must let go, and it stays in your body for ever so long. Long after the chase is over you can still feel it. I have experienced stress attacks and it hurts a lot. At times I have very little energy; it is hard to get a grip and get out of the house whether it is to go for a walk or do something else. The sofa is so comfortable, especially if I think I can get some peace and time to read. I have to stop doing that, though, because I often fall asleep and by that destroy the little sense of circadian rhythm I got left. I know I have a job to do trying to fix that, but I have great hopes it will get better… it will all get a lot better. Soon. Some day. I have high hopes.

I have no idea what the right answer to what happiness really is, but ... although I shiver and tremble with freezing cold (perhaps not that strange as it is, after all, winter, and the wind has been whistling cold and hard for over a month now) spring is already well underway within me. I thaw and feel warmer inside, and although this is not the correct definition to what happiness is, I am sure it applies?