I Am Happiest When [No.1]

Posted by Jill Chivers in Happy

I’ve become fascinated with happiness. What makes us happy? Why don’t we allow ourselves to be happier?

I’ve created a new category on the blog, Happy, as a place to explore what makes me happy, and more about happiness in general.

I believe that part of the puzzle of what has caused some of us to overshop is a disconnection with our own innate sense of happiness.

We’ve lost touch with how to be happy.

So we’ve shopped as a way of making us happy.

But it hasn’t worked, not in any sustainable, long-term way. The ‘happiness buzz’ either wore off far too quickly (sometimes by the time we’ve walked out of the store or gotten home with our haul) and so we had to repeat it – quickly, and over and over again.

Or it was offset by feelings of guilt and embarrassment about all we’ve purchased, and how little of those items we actually wanted, needed or used/wore.

As a path to happiness, shopping hasn’t worked. It doesn’t work. We’ve got the wrong solution for a real ailment.

I say let’s cut out the middleman (the buying of more and more stuff) and let’s go straight to what makes us happy. Or at the very least, let’s rely on the middleman (the buying of more and more stuff) less and reconnect with what makes us happy.

Let’s allow ourselves to be happier – without all the stuff, or all the drama.

I’m experimenting with happiness throughout 2014, so over the next 12 months I’ll be sharing more and more about my own experiences in tapping into what makes me happy, and allowing myself to feel more of it, more often.

In these I Am Happiest When posts, which I’ll be posting every weekend, I’m going to share about the big and the small things that make me feel happy, from the existential to the everyday. I’m going to be real, even if that means it isn’t always lofty.

I hope you find what I share to inspire you to have your own experiments with happiness, and to allow yourself to be happier, more often.

I am happiest when (#1):

My cat is purring

The sound of a contented cat purring would have to be one of the best sounds in the entire world. A purring cat says so much – it says I feel safe, I feel happy, I feel loved, I am contented, I am where I want to be. It is a deep and rhythmic sound, like a tribal drum. Just being around a wordless sound that conveys so much has got to be good for the soul.