Just arrived back in Los Angeles after Coachella. More on our festival shenanigans later but for the time being just thought I’d put up a little souvenir postcard from the weekend…
I’m on a quest to find happiness, as I imagine you are too. Often it feels to me like a geographical location that I could reach if only I possessed the knowledge and equipment to actually get there. I read books on the subject (which probably makes me look suspiciously like a tragic twenty-something divorcee to my fellow commuters) in an attempt to find my happy place and since there seem to be so many of us malcontents out there – particularly in the creative sphere – I thought I’d share some of the more useful things I’ve come across in relation to happiness and work.
1. Find Time For Work
Ever read A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf? There isn’t a person alive who can’t relate to that essay. Human beings need the time and space to fulfill their potential. It wasn’t until I got to my final year of university and began working on my dissertation that I discovered my ideal way to work. In a perfect world I’d rise early – maybe 7am when my mind is fresh and the world is quiet – and get my head down until lunch. Then I’d take a break, get some exercise, eat a languorous lunch in the sunshine, have a nap and then pick up where I left off after dinner.
I don’t think many people feel happy and productive after being chained to their desks from 9-5. Especially if, like me, they eat lunch in front of the screen too. In my first video Jason Fried talks about why the best work rarely happens at work…
2. Get into the Flow
In the book Happier, Harvard tutor Tal Ben-Shahar Ph.D outlines a state he refers to as ‘flow’. You’ll understand exactly what it’s about if you try to picture a time when you were so absorbed in reading a book that you missed you tube stop, were so engrossed in writing that when somebody called your name you didn’t hear or were so focused on a sport that an hour passed by in what seemed like a matter of minutes. You went into ‘the zone’.
When in a state of flow ‘we not only perform our best but we enjoy what we’re doing…our activities provide the appropriate level of challenge, when the task at hand is neither too difficult nor too easy’.
Of course those moments when a task is either too difficult or too easy will also be familiar to everybody – it’s the times when you procrastinate on Twitter, send an idle email to a friend or play solitaire on your laptop when you really ought to be working. Find a job which allows you to experience Flow more often than not and you’ve found your vocation in life. Find an activity which allows you to experience Flow more often than not and you’ve found your life-long hobby.
3. Let Yourself Off
My boyfriend, who works in creative advertising, gives me a valuable piece of advice every time I mentally berate myself for doing a substandard piece of writing. ‘You’ve got to kill your babies, Benj’ he tells me. This is an admittedly bizarre ad-land phrase which in a nutshell means – don’t put too much emotional investment into your work.
He spends the majority of his day coming up with ideas, some of which he’ll get a huge pat on the back for, others of which will be dismissed as essentially, well, crap. Sometimes you have to make some shit work to get to the good stuff. Don’t be shocked if the first draft of your novel is rubbish, or if an editor cuts your feature down to within an inch of its life. Dust yourself off and try again. Don’t let the first bit of criticism you receive derail your happiness.
My second video outlines some words of wisdom for American broadcaster Ira Glass. If you’re young and creative and hungry for success but aren’t sure quite how to get there you MUST watch it.
4. Be Organised
I have about six things which are repeatedly playing on my mind at the moment: I should take up yoga on a regular basis again, I need to learn to play more than just Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the ukulele I got for Christmas, I should attempt to do some more freelancing outside of my day job, I need to complete the TEFL course I signed up for online, I should start writing my novel, I need to blog more frequently. These six things are seriously hindering my quest for happiness right now.
I probably have more than enough hours in my day to do a large proportion of these things, but I don’t. Why not? Because conversely it feels as if there aren’t enough hours in my day. I’m bogged down with Facebook, Twitter, TV shows, emails, phone calls…there’s always something I’m falling behind with or something to feel guilty about.
In my third video Scott Belsky talks about how to make goals happen by organising time better (among other things).
5. Wear Sunscreen
In 1997 Mary Schmich wrote and article for the Chicago Tribune called Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted on the Young which Baz Luhrmann later put to music. It’s still one of the truest pieces of wisdom I’ve ever heard and makes me feel a little happier and more motivated every time I listen to it.
One of my most popular posts traffic-wise was on Jaeger’s Celine-esque shopper. Ladies, I hear you. It’s the dream bag, but really, who can afford one. The question is how to get a similar look for a fraction of the price, right? So I set myself the task of tracking down a couple more lookalikes that might be slightly more in keeping with the average woman’s budget.
First up we have J. Crew (which recently launched in the UK, thank God) and its Tillery tote.
And second up we have the (slightly more expensive) Zurich from Milli Millu.
So there you have it – two Celine Boston lookalike shoppers for a more realistic price.
