Happiness #7 Challenge yourself

Leisure time is more satisfying than work, but you should considerate what you spend your leisure time on. After a long day at the office it can be very tempting to drag yourself home and collapse in front of your flat screen TV. But: you become happier leading an active life. Start training and work out, set a goal. The goal must be a challenge, yet realistic.

I don’t think I would mind coming home after a long day at work only to collapse in front of the flat screen tv. I'm almost certain I then had become a happier person. Don’t misunderstand me: my job is incredibly rewarding. I have wonderful colleagues and I get to be with great youth throughout the day.

The thing is, though, that I privately I do not live in a pink bubble by myself. I believe that parents have the responsibility to take care of their children, and the time between work and bedtime is pretty much the time you have with your children. It is the time you have to take care of your house and home in a way that we live as well as possible. Food has to be prepared, clothes washed, you have to dust, homework should be done and it really is quite a bit a complex solitaire to make time for everything.

Naturally one can plan the day more organized, you can always be more structured. But, and there is of course always a but: I depend on being a bit impulsive, it is a must for me to be able to. I need to feel I can drop whatever I have in my hands and just do something that occurs to me at that time. For me it is more important than having fixed times when I exercise. My body bears the marks and dents that tells of past problems and childbirth because I don’t exercise (that’s probably why, right? The decay sets in).

I know it's not fashionable to be older or have scars, but I think that after all they tell the story of my life, and it's not certain that everything has been just a voyage on a pink cloud. Nor do I think that plastic surgery to pretty things up is all that beautiful, either.

I walk the dog and use it as an excuse for me to move a few meters outside, but he can’t see very well anymore so he runs with his nose in the asphalt all the time and the pace is somehow not fast enough to get my heart pumping faster. It would be unfair to call it exercise. Even though I don’t work out, I would say I am reasonably active in my spare time (especially when the clock is tilted midnight and most people are sleeping).

That said, I am a little secretly jealous of those who manage to treat their body as a worthy temple. They exercise, sleep and eat right, and find happiness in seeing the results. In all fairness I have to confess I haven’t got enough self-discipline to actually do that... but I have a goal, and that I keep, I have to stay in shape to be able to tie my shoes myself, without sitting on a bench or get short of breath! That’s something, right?

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?