Zuzana gave me a puzzle of the battle of Sharpsburg or Antietam as a Christmas present. The battle took place on the 17th of September 1862 and it’s still considered to be the bloodiest day in US history.
It’s one of the most original gifts I have ever been given. Zuzana is very original, ever thoughtful, considerate and generous. You might start to wonder why on earth I need to run something like a Happiness Project. See her picture below.
If my happiness is a puzzle then I would spontaneously piece it together like this:
- Total control of how I choose to spend my time. Thanks to my line of work I have never been closer to this. What angers me the most is when I am forced to do something against my will. So this is a crucial part of the puzzle for me. You could say I suffer from only-child-itis.
- Intimacy with women, obviously. But lately I have discovered that this can also exhaust me. Like am not doing it naturally but because am out to prove something. There have been times lately that I felt a huge sense of relief when I passed on some opportunities to be intimate with an other woman. This is a confusing development, but I still feel like including women as an essential piece of the puzzle. But how easy life would be if they weren’t.
- Knowing. Am still obsessed with knowing things. I spend most of my time memorizing nearly useless facts. I even memorize lots of movie dialogues for no reason other than that I get obsessed by things. I would prefer to eliminate this piece of the puzzle. I don’t find it productive at all, although it does allow me to almost never prepare classes, I can invent lessons on the spot. But it’s so time consuming and seems so useless. I could devote an entire chapter to all the useless trivia I have soaked up today.
- Being of some service to other people, especially emotionally. Like this morning I taught a class and I am quite sure I entertained two people at their job, I gave them some extra self-insight, I cheered them up a bit, cheered them on a bit and almost on the side of that I also taught them some English. If other language teachers have one giant mistake in common it’s that they do most of the talking. Although I steer the lessons in a direction of my choosing, I listen about 80 percent of the time. And who doesn’t enjoy being listened to?
- My body. The state of my body may be about 25 percent of my current unhappiness. Not that there is anything dramatically wrong with it, it’s just that I am dramatically dissatisfied with it. Yet I fail to regain the fanatical self-discipline I used to have.
- Exercise. I would feel A LOT better if I could finally work up the motivation to exercise regularly again. Exercise defragments my thoughts.
- Playing boardgames. I am very tempted to call these entirely useless, but I do feel happy when am playing my favorite boardgames. There is only one that really brings out the worst in me. Maybe I should devote a chapter to that game and why I think it has such a negative effect on me. It’s called The Settlers of Catan. If you really want to know a person play a game with them, said none other than Carl Gustav Jung.
- Family, but it’s not the priority most other people seem to make out of it. My second biggest fear in life is the inevitable death of my mother. But in the end I suppose am too self-obsessed to be a real family man. It might change if I ever have children, since I would probably see them as an extension of myself and therefore I would obsess about them too. May God send them a top notch guardian angel…
- Money. I hate it, worrying about money has made me far less of a human than I could have been, but it buys me my freedom and when I see money coming in it gives me the feeling I must be doing something useful…
- Humor. The reader may get the impression that am a self-obsessed nutter who is autistically serious about life, but I am often in a fun loving mood. If I could finally shake off my pet worries I would become super sociable, witty, loving, caring, but I allow myself to be so threatened by life that the right word to describe how I go through life is: Entrenched. I feel like I have dug massive entrenchments and I only venture out for sneak attacks behind enemy lines because I have to, to get resources (money). Am afraid that even if I would become a billionaire by some unimaginable stroke of luck it could happen I would hide in an apartment for a long time without ever going outside without ever interacting with people… That’s how scared I am of having to function in our culture. I am scared that by being nice I will end up under a bridge…
- Talking to very intelligent people. The trouble is that very intelligent people tend to be very busy people, so outside of work with some of my most gifted students I can count the truly meaningful conversations I have in the course of one year on the fingers of my two hands. I thank Gert Buelens, my friend Ruben, Franswa, several of my students, Zuzana, Eva (a Slovak physician), Beata Abram Muller, Paul Verhaeghe, and a few others.
- Languages. I still get a dopamine hit whenever I learn a new word.
- Last but not least is self-expression. Am not so sure if it ultimately contributes to my overall happiness but I feel the almost constant need to spill my guts in written form. I am often completely embarrassed by what I have written, but while am writing it does seem my soul is buzzing with something like excitement not too far removed from what we tend to call happiness. But as soon as I stop writing I am overwhelmed by depression because I always think it’s such bad writing that nobody could possibly benefit, let alone find comprehensible, what I throw out on the page. Hell, last year I wrote enough pages to fill 5 books of average length. Yet my thoughts and writing are so scattered that none of those hundreds of page ended up forming an actual book. I have the almost forlorn hope that I will be able to turn this happiness project into a book. Immediately my mind goes: Dude, apart from two or three friends who could possibly make any sense out of this happiness rant of yours?
I suppose those are the main pieces of the puzzle.
This is the giver of custom made Civil War puzzles. The lady who makes me feel like a heartless criminal when waking up next to her is not enough to make me happy to be alive.
First of all its great present. Really creative and perfectly suits to you. Looking that shapes of each puzzle piece, it has to be custom made right?
Today in morning i saw one picture, I guess I cant link here it but anyway was just black with white text on it : “Stuck between I need a money and I live just once” I immediately thought about you.
I still think you do this all from longer and more complicated end of rope. Why run various projects, making your mind busy with thinking how to improve happines as it is some high end math.
Cut things which making you depressed and which prevent you do actually stuff making you happy. Find time for exercize, stop being obssesed by money, start family.
Thats shorter and I think easier end of life rope. Take an action of cleaning. 2019 is great year, you know why? Thats our last “teen” year in our lives. Make it special.
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And do you follow your own advice?
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50% to 50% honestly. Right now I am happy for 50%. Last year, first half year, I cut few things and changed myself to reach those 50%. Found new people to talk with, new relation…. I just cant get rid of thoughts all this will end one day. I somehow think and believe happiness isnt eternal, just temporal and we always have to find something which makes us happy in real present time.
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am not so sure if a family would make me happy. I live in a building with lots of families with small children and ok, they do not have time to worry about the economy, because they seem to live in a hell made up of yelling, crying, snot, shit, diseases, lack of sleep, lack of time, and quite a lot of fights and frustration between partners. It sure does not look like happiness to me, more like some sort of masochist decision. But that’s me of course.
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Life is like a bicycle, you have to keep moving or you will fall down. A quote attributed to Einstein. No idea if he really said anything like that, but it strikes me as true. What would have to happen to get to 100 percent?
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You know me, I hate changes, I barely change something in my life. Its either habbits or opinions. When something suddenly changes and Im not fine with this, I freak out totally.
I lived in opinion that kids are all you mentioned above for few years. Trust me its not like that. My brain and body already said me its what I need to do. Maybe yours not yet. We all have it different.
Reaching 100% is impossible for me right now, unless I will be scared that all nice stuff is going to be ruined soon I wont be for 100% happy.
But I can live with way less.
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My body has little to do with, being a guy, I just see all around me that kids clearly mess up one’s life completely. There must be good sides to it as well, but I doubt I would enjoy the first two years when all they do is cry, vomit, shit and get sick. I am thinking getting kids is overrated when it comes to happiness. And I think I rarely mention kids in my posts. I will try to have them, but only because I think it will be fun once they are older than six
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This sounds like you. Trust me, your writing is much improved along with spelling. Children are a huge commitment, but it might get your head out of troublesome places. Of course, Zuzi seems to be a potentially great Mom.
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Plus, you two have tremendous intelligence & creativity that would help you as parents & to give to kids’ futures. I’m done.
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Yes, she is ideally suited to be a terrific mum
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True, but my biggest fear is to pass on my deeply negative world view which I find hard to shake off
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When you look into your child’s eyes, I’m guessing what you want to pass on will be positive. You know, my experience is only from others.
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The puzzle looks great! Very thoughtful and creative gift, indeed. 🙂
As for the family topic, I am neutral. On one hand, I understand it must be great to have a family, on the other hand, I also see all kinds of difficulties that come with it.
But I dare to disagree with “first two years when all they do is cry, vomit, shit and get sick.” Actually, a one year old baby can understand you even though s/he cannot speak yet. And the way how kids learn to speak is fascinating on its own. They start with some sounds and babble and before you notice, they speak fluently. A 3 years old kid already has unique personality and is interested in many things. So I think kids can be fun way before they turn 6.
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then there is hope
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