I Do Not Like Mondays

Like many of us, just about all — 94% — of Canadians want more joy and happiness in their lives, according to some new research from tea maker Tetley. But meanwhile, fewer are willing to commit to make changes: the study found that nearly six out of 10, 57%, said they wouldn’t make a New Year’s resolution for 2024.

So the trick might be in how to get there. In fact, 42% of survey respondents said making New Year’s resolutions is a “waste of time.”

When they did make resolutions, however, the study found Canadians were most focused on wellbeing; self-development (such as self-love and better relationships); finances (such as saving money and paying off debt); physicality (such as getting fit and losing weight, the perennially popular resolution); and career growth.

In addition to happiness and joy, the Tetley survey found that 89% of Canadians want more balance in their lives, indicating there’s quite a lack of feeling work-life balance among our neighbors to the north.

The survey was conducted Dec. 5-7, 2023, and polled just over 1,500 Canadians who are members of the Angus Reid Forum, an online public opinion community. 

Other findings of the study include that 81% of Canadians want more time to focus on their needs and wellbeing. Slightly higher than that number, 83%, want “to show up better for themselves and others” this year, which could have some broad meaning and implications, but generally points to a lack of being present (and content with that presence) in life.

Naturally, Tetley paired findings of the survey with some of its products, including a new “Live Happy” herbal tea and “Live Balanced” coffee-emulating decaf tea. A “Live Bold” Tetley tea might help out the 82% of respondents who said they want to live more boldly and confidently. Or “Live Calm” could be a good choice for the 92% of Canadians who said they want “to appreciate the moments of calm on a hectic day.”

And just like the 94% of respondents who said they want more joy and happiness in life, that same number said they’d like to keep their cool in “challenging” situations. Tetley suggested its “Live Cool” product that’s designed to help users unwind.

Getting to happy

But other than drinking tea, how do you get that extra happiness and joy in life? There is no shortage of self-help books designed to find or increase those feelings.  

According to Mo Gawdat, former chief business officer of Google [X] — an elite engineering team at Google — and author of “Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy”, that could be the wrong way to look at it altogether. Happiness, he believes, is effectively the default state of being for humans.

Approaching the happiness equation as an engineer, Gawdat notes that unhappiness is what happens when life doesn’t match your hopes and expectations. Thus, part of the problem may be unrealistic expectations you need to let go of — and meanwhile, realize that pains and discomforts in life can be useful in various ways. Just don’t replay them over and over needlessly and cause yourself to suffer.

Unhappiness may all be in your own head, and happiness is a conscious choice, Gawdat writes. To find joy, live the truth — eliminating the many illusions we heap upon ourselves.

One of those big illusions is time. “Time truly is an illusion. The only truth about time is this second,” he said in an interview with Google. “Yet most of us, especially the professional thinkers, we live in the second that will happen in two-and-a-half hours from now … and shift back to the second that happened two and a half hours ago.”

“We’re either in regret or in worry all the time, while the truth is, this [second] is all you will ever experience,” he added. He also spoke of happiness from a child’s perspective, rather than an adult’s materialistic one.

“Happiness is not to be found outside you,” he said. “Happy is there inside you.”

Gawdat isn’t by any means the only one who thinks happiness is a mindset or thought process we can control, or at least influence. Biochemist and geneticist Dr. Ski Chilton writes about his own path to and method for achieving joy in his new book, “There is Another Way to Happiness: The Four Step CAST Process That Will Transform Your Life.”

That acronym stands for consciousness, awareness, surrender and trust. Chilton immersed himself in meditation and spiritual practices after an accident nearly claimed his life. Upon doing so, he found “that I have within me at any moment boundless access to a place of conscious awareness and stillness where my true self, freedom and peace reside.”

The book encourages the reader to find a spiritual awakening and happiness and stop “battling insecurities, building a toxic and false egoic self, and searching for the worth” that he couldn’t find in accomplishments. So like Gawdat, Chilton believes we place unhelpful and needless definitions and expectations on ourselves.

Also like Gawdat, Chilton says that happiness is innate, like a default state of being. The book leads readers through a process of rewiring “destructive” thought patterns; deepening self-awareness and finding happiness within; relinquishing control of ego, fear and the “illusion of control”; embracing the unknowable in life, including death; and connecting with the creative intelligence of the universe.

All that, says Chilton, “beckons you to step into a beautiful, transcendent path of living.”

Just a few thoughts on happiness, of which there are a multitude. And perhaps the truest statements of happiness are the simplest.

“All you need is love.” —John Lennon

Content © Aaron G. Marsh

Lead image by Alexandru Cojanu, Pexels