Some simple wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut: notice when you’re happy.

“My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard-educated life insurance salesman who lived at 5033 North Pennsylvania Street, taught me something very important.

He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to NOTICE it. He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery; or fishing, and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.

Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is”

"So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

More on wellbeing? Here are 5 ways to wellbeing.

If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is

“Just remember that finishing lines are good, but their most important role is to get you over the start line in the first place.”

This little piece of wisdom is from Stevie Smith (not the poet). Stevie embarked on a human-powered journey around the world — Expedition 360 — and reached Hawaii under pedal power*. I learned about him from a little chapter in One Man and His Bike by Mike Carter. The chapter where he speaks with Stevie I immediately reread as soon as I finished it.

Mike also shared this deeper and more poetic version of the same insight:

“Happiness is the acceptance of the journey as it is now, not the promise of the other shore”

*Stevie’s companion Jason Lewis completed the circumnavigation of the world 13 years after they began.

Finishing lines

A lot of us may have felt pressure at times to find our purpose — to find our one true cause, our personal mission, what we personally should be doing and where we fit in. I really liked this framework and approach from Priya Singh who suggests that we don’t have one singular ‘why’ — that our why may change often and it’s not a pot of gold or treasure to be found and that if we haven’t found it we’re failing.

She shares a framework of 3 types of work: work that feeds you and those that depend on you, work that feeds the world, and work that feeds your soul. Any work you do may fit into one or more of these, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your work needs to overlap all three. We’re each capable of many different projects in our lives and work that fits into just one or two of these is plenty. Rather than aim for the trap of the one elusive dream job consider diversifying and satisfying each of these with different activities or at different times.

When presented with an opportunity or an idea, instead of asking why do it, try asking why not — practice not rejecting yourself before you’ve even started.

Framework and wise ideas: Priya Singh. Any misinterpretation or inaccuracy is due to me.

Find your why not

So often do we talk about speaking with passion, much rarer do we think about listening with passion.

Conversations are two-sided, they only work if one person is listening while the other is talking. Unfortunately, we tend to have a greater innate interest in making sure others know the smart, interesting and important things that we think than truly absorbing what someone else has to say. So I love this quote from Harriet Lerner:

Listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard.

If we all could do this routinely with our colleagues, friends, family, children, and partners I’d guess it’d make quite a difference.

I learned about it from Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead.

Listen with passion

Clayton Christensen, in his book and article ’How will you measure your life?’, discusses what he learned about how to live a life of integrity. Among other things he says:

It’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,”…you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.

I think this is relevant, both in the small things — whether to work out today when it’s raining —  and in the larger decisions which help us be proud of our lives.

The dangers of just this once

A simple way to remember if you locked your car, turned the gas off, watered the plants or whatever, is to do something unusual around the time that you do it. When you find yourself thinking back to whether you did it or not, you will know for sure when you remember the strange thing that you did that is connected to it. The only limit is your imagination.

Ironically, I can’t remember where I learned this — I must not have followed this tip.

How to remember if you did something

I can’t remember where I heard or read it, but I have found that when I think of a compliment as having a gift for someone, then not taking a moment to let them know, is like holding back a gift with someone’s name on it. This has made me take the time to share compliments more often with friends, colleagues, shopkeepers, that person who always has a cheery smile in the morning, the person who organised the event, my kids, my wife, and pretty much everyone. And life seems a better place. Do it!

Thank you for following. It’s a privilege.

Compliments are gifts

Whenever I think of the convenience of someone doing something for me I usually conclude it’s easily worth a tip. So I have taken to adding one. Then hopefully they’ll be happy to do it again in the future too.

Volunteer your own booking fee

A helpful observation from not following this many times in my life.

Front load names to cue attention

Sneezing into your sleeve helps prevent the spread of cold and flu germs.

Dracula sneeze

Always accept a mint when offered

I learned about this nice principle from agile software development. Basically, that when thinking about how much you’ll get done next week, what you got done this week is a good proxy. Sure this week was different because you had that external presentation and an offsite, a bug to fix on live and Amy was sick. But the reality is things will interrupt you next week too. Just like the weather, what happened before is a good first guess at what will happen next.

Yesterday’s weather

It achieves nothing but bitterness. I am yet to witness an occasion where saying "I told you so" or an equivalent led to a net positive effect.

Never say “I told you so.”

Some activities, no matter how much time you spend on them, just keep coming back. These include cleaning, ironing, washing up and watching the news. There’ll always be more tomorrow. If I can, I try to spend time, first, on activities that have a lasting impact, even in a small way. Better to be tired tidying the kitchen than too tired to start that project you care about. If possible, forget about news entirely. I have consistently found that when we’ve been out of touch traveling for some weeks, the world has carried on plenty well enough without me.

Unfortunately, you still have to do the others sometimes, just try not to let them push out the other things. As you can imagine, this leads to a delicate household balance.

Spend time on activities with long-term value first

Fail cheerfully. Be obvious. It’s not about you. Dan Klein is my improv guru having had the fortune to learn from him a couple of times. Thanks Dan. And, as usual, improv tips tend to extend as good practice beyond improv.

The improv attitude

…or it’s on you if you don’t get it. Jump taught me this. The frame change for me was that you’re not owed anything. It’s on you to help yourself and help others out in the process.

Ask for what you need

…and add years to your life, and life to your years.

Take the stairs

A little nugget of wisdom from a book I read long ago called Technotrends by Daniel Burrus.

Don’t fix the blame, fix the problem

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants

I’ve always been somewhat guarded about sharing, preferring to stick with close friends and family. This frame shift, provided for me by JP Rangaswami, was part of the reason for putting Sketchplanations up here. And it’s spot on. How could I possibly know who may find which sketchplanation interesting? Thanks JP.

Share by Default

Incremental improvements won’t always get you to the optimal solution depending on where you start.

Beware of local optimisation

Having been on the other side of this countless times, those small moments of generosity and openness from locals can literally transform your perceptions of the world. We are all ambassadors.

Be nice to tourists

Buy experiences instead of things. Help others instead of yourself. Buy many small pleasures instead of a few big ones. Drawn directly from the excellently entitled paper:

If money doesn’t make you happy then you probably aren’t spending it right. Dunn, Gilbert, Wilson, 2011.

Spend better

Advice indirectly from Nigella Lawson in her husband Charles Saatchi’s book. Also, a pretty direct reading from How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Better to be interested than try to be interesting

It's a wonderful thing how at bedtime one day can be a disaster with a child and you can be the person they least like in the world and the next day, without fail, all is forgotten and you can be their favourite once more. Every day is a clean slate and a fresh start to be nice to each other and do something wonderful together. It's such a refreshing attitude when compared to adults who can willingly or unintentionally hold a grudge for decades.

Don’t hold grudges

Young children have this wonderful and at times incredibly frustrating ability to completely ignore the past, even moments ago, and pay no heed whatsoever to the future. They're a fabulous lesson in living in the present. That they were miserable just now when someone took what they were playing with — doesn't matter any more. That playing in the puddle for longer means you'll miss the bus, and be late for lunch with friends — doesn't matter. All that matters is now.

Sketchplanations tagged with advice