O's Little Guide to the Big Questions by TBC

Author:TBC
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

Give Yourself a Happiness Raise

Margarita Bertsos

Last year, as I faced my thirty-third birthday, it seemed like a good time to sit down and make a list of financial goals. Some were instantly doable, like spending less on food. (Goodbye, seven-dollar organic strawberries.) Others were more ambitious: Sock away enough cash for a down payment on an apartment; build a savings account for fun grown-up stuff like buying last-minute plane tickets to Tahoe.

The problem: These things required more money than I was making. The other problem: In this economy, it wasn’t realistic to expect a huge raise. Suddenly my future started to look like an ever-narrowing tunnel. Without a big increase in cash flow, how was my amazing life supposed to start?

I loved my job, I loved my boss, but I’d spent my twenties closing up shop at the office every night when I knew I should have been playing harder and taking more risks. I’d built a career I was proud of, but I realized I couldn’t view a paycheck as my ultimate reward.

Finally I made an executive decision. I’d give myself a happiness raise and bring into my life more of the good things that money can’t buy (and that I’d been denying myself) and less of the stuff that didn’t have much real value.

The first step was to do a serious accounting, calculating where I’d been spending my time and energy and noting how much joy I was netting on a daily basis. The results didn’t surprise me: so many have-tos and must-dos, so few moments of real bliss.

I instituted a new rule: Anytime the word “should” flashed across my mind, I hit the brakes. Did I really want to attend this baby shower or join that book club? Often I didn’t—so I respectfully said no, and found that the world didn’t end.

Then there was my health. I’d been trying to lose weight for years, and I’d had some success, but at the expense of my happiness (and my bank account). I dutifully joined a gym and then stopped going. Because that wasn’t a big enough source of shame, I spent more money to join another—and didn’t go there, either. I finally let myself admit that I hated boot-camp classes and pounding along a treadmill, so I quit and signed up for twelve-dollar Greek dancing lessons. I got back in the pool and swam laps, giving my body a taste of weightlessness. I also stopped counting the calories in blueberries. I threw out my scale. The result: I dropped four dress sizes. When I focused on pleasure in other areas of my life, I had less time to think about food and more desire to get up and move. And it wasn’t torture—it was fun.

Once I stopped wasting energy on things I didn’t want to do, I suddenly had headspace for all those things I used to say I didn’t have time for, like a love life. The idea of dating—the thought of losing my independence, letting someone else see my imperfections—really scared me.

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