The Curse of Being Happy

Do you like coffee?

I hope you do. It's got some great properties, but it's definitely an acquired taste. No one likes it when they first try it. Today, the coffee I had was okay, but the location I had it in was incredible.

Instead of the stone kitchen bench top I usually place my cup on, today it rested on the railing of my uncle's new boat. We took it out for a spin in the Northern Beaches. He even let me take the wheel for a while, reminding me of the line from Tom Hanks' movie 'Captain Philip', I'm da captin now. Photo evidence attached.

The day was great, we swam out in nice water and I tried stand-up paddle boarding for the first time. But when we got back, the conversation shifted. We 'parked' the boat around a nice wharf, in the shadow of huge mansions. These behemoths had 3-4 floors, a jetty that extended out, a boat house, and an expensive boat parked in front. Every house was worth over $10m.

Despite the amazing day we had, we all started talking about 'how nice it would be to live in one of those'.

It broke the flow of positivity for me. I realised we had reached out Upper Limit for happiness. We were bringing ourselves back down. And I didn't want to. So, I followed Gay Hendriks' advice, and shifted my focus to watching the Jellyfish floating around the boat.

Things were great. We didn't need more. We were happy, like the swimming white blobs in the water.

Why was this important to me? Because we have a habit of dimming our energy when we have a lot of it. I didn't want to dull mine.

I learned this from a book called 'The Big Leap' by Gay Hendriks. Very easy book to read and I'm thinking of buying copies to give to everyone in my family for Christmas. You might like it too.

Anyways, next time you catch yourself falling from a happy high—don't. Focus on something else.

Choose to stay happy,

Harry

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