Year: 2010

sunday life: the benefits of *not* being happy

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This week I get sad

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I’ve been writing this column for a while now – 72 weeks to be exact – and I have to confess, I’ve had it with trying to be happy.  It’s all become too much.

While this column is a somewhat tortured search for a better life, most of the literature I’m exposed to is about happiness. You see, since positive psychology emerged ten years ago, happiness has become the holy grail of our existence. Everyone’s trying to get happy because a happier life is a better life. Or so we’re sold.

And, so, every week I’m sent half a dozen happiness books to review, I’m invited to happiness pow-wows and my inbox receives a chundering of the latest theories and studies about how best to land a smile on one’s dial, usually involving Tibetan monks or a bunch of Greek goat herders.

Ergo, I have happy wash; I’m “cheer exhausted”, you might say.

Happiness used to be something you experienced appropriately, on occasion (on birthdays, when running under sprinklers). It was a spontaneous thing you got glimpses of, if you were lucky. Nowadays, these countless theories prove happiness can be manufactured and sculpted. We can work hard at being happy (by turning sad thoughts into happy ones and thus reshaping the synapses in our brains). And, when we do, we attract more happiness (you reap what you sow and all that jazz).

All of which has served to create a highly tedious imperative to be happy all of the time. Which has simultaneously rendered the slightly less sunny among us, well, lazy. You’re not happy? The sun not shining on your patch? A bit down that you have incurable cancer? Pull your socks up!

I had someone do this to me the other day. He bounced past me on the street and told me to, “Smile, be happy”. Had I been in a more beamish mood, I’d have said, “No thanks, I’m experimenting with the miserable end of my mood spectrum right now. It’s proving highly productive.” Instead I glowered.

But has anyone stopped to ask if happiness is all that much chop? Is happiness the only path to a better life? This week, having reached saturation point with the Pollyanna antics, I thought it was time to ask if pessimism doesn’t also have its place.

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Some lovely friday tips and thoughts

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Happy Friday. Good week. Big week. I filmed for a few days with Eat Yourself Sexy, the new show I’m filming on Lifestyle YOU (on telly next year). Two of the women undergoing our diet and lifestyle makeover look completely different women…they’d lost the puffiness in their faces from holding onto toxins. One woman reduced … Read more

whatever gets you through the night, s’alright

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I have a theory. You do your best. And then sometimes things go to shit. In such cases, you do what you can to get through.

77118_3_468 Too often, we push and push to eat right, exercise right etc etc and it’s all pushing and punishment. But we don’t allow ourselves to collapse in a heap right. Which sometimes means doing the “wrong” things.

At such times I try to recall something John Lennon sang, “whatever gets you through the night, s’alright”. And sometimes it is.

I was reminded of this when reading a comment from Dani in response to my post on coping with “thryoidy days”:

“On really bad weekend days when I don’t make it out of bed until mid afternoon, I’ll also often have a coffee, which works for me for a couple of reasons. One, it helps clear the fuzz (I usually have 3 or 4 regular coffees a week, so it’s not entirely an addiction thing). Two, it forces me to get out of bed and out of the house and walk 400m or so to my local cafe = gentle exercise. Three, it means I enjoy the human interaction of chatting to the baristas and the regulars. It works for me, but I udnerstand coffee is not on everyone’s “OK list.”

Yeah, coffee is totally “wrong” if you have thyroid issues. Except when it’s right.

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Check this sh*t out: the scary reason I have to move out of my apartment

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A little while back I had building biologist Nicole Bijlsma do a run-through of my flat to see if it was toxic, and making me sick. It was. Although my initial Sunday Life column didn’t outline the full extent of things. It was a bit too controversial for the magazine… plus, I hadn’t really digested the brunt of Nicole’s message. Now I have.

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Basically, my bedroom is making me sick. No bones about it. Here’s the deal: when Nicole did an EMF (electro-magnetic field) reading… the scanner spun around madly. The reading was dangerously high. And erratic. Nicole was shocked.

So we went outside… my bedroom sits right above the fuse room for the whole building (12 apartments).

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sunday life: walking meditation…have you tried it?

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This week I try walking meditation

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Back when I studied law, I’d climb trees. When my head got too frazzled from the insane logic that is torts, I would down pen, walk a few blocks to the bushland near my house, and clamber up a eucalypt. Then I’d sit. Bushwalkers passed beneath me, oblivious to the fully-grown woman suspended out on a limb above. Sometimes it took an hour for my head to clear. Once it did, I’d dismount and head back to my desk.

Law does crazy things to a lot of people; I think I got off rather lightly with this tree-climbing caper, all things considered. In fact, it kind of saved me. It was an appropriately odd release that got me out of my head fug. I’d always come back to earth far more grounded.

Nowadays I mostly walk. This column generally emerges from a walk around the block. Paragraph by paragraph, it unfurls as I lap the ‘hood.

As Nietzsche wrote: “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking”.

Henry Thoreau once said: “Methinks the moment my legs being to move, my thoughts being to flow”.

Which is not to imply my column is a work of great thoughts. Just that it probably wouldn’t exist at all if I didn’t walk.

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how to build a better blog (part 2-ish)

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One day I started a blog. I didn’t know where it would head. I spewed forth and it grew like a virus. I just wanted to share things.

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Like all things with technology, it moved faster than I was able to adjust. So, truth be known, it’s not really what I thought it would be. But, then, it’s exactly what it needs to be. ‘Cos here it is.

I thought about doing a mass overhaul, to get it ship-shape (redesign, get it looking less “young”, change the name to…a real blog name!). But instead I’ve opted for gentle shifts.

On Wednesday I posted about how I hired a virtual assistant to help with my blog. They’ve kindly decided to offer everyone a discount on Freelancer – three project posts for free! When you register, use this code: “SARAH”. They’re also answering any questions you might have on the post.

Today, though, I want to share two other services I totally dig:

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some insider eco fashion tips #1

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I posted about The Salvos’ Buy Nothing New month a few weeks back. The lovely former Instyle Magazine stylist Matt Paroz (that’s him below) from how big is your eco got in touch and offered this guest post of tips and tricks for swapping/recycling/rejuvenating your threads. Thought you might like. Six Sustainable Fashion Choices to make … Read more

how i hired a virtual assistant to help with my blog

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Oh, I have to tell you about Alf and Freelancer.com.au. Oh, my.

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I’ve been making a few changes to my blog. It’s a gradual thing. Mostly I don’t really know what I’m doing and haven’t had the time to do it…so I hired a virtual assistant. And it’s made me so happy. A stack of people have asked me about this. So here’s a little rundown:

* Why a virtual assistant?

A VA is someone you hire online to help you with stuff you’re, quite frankly, over doing. People use them to help with their kids’ homework (which I find sad), to manage their diaries, to transcribe stuff…a guy hired a freelancer to plant a stink bomb outside his mate’s place on the other side of the planet!

A VA, though, is perfect for blog help. You can hire someone to transcribe, tag, format, design, upload your posts and videos and images, copy edit (and spell check) posts, manage the comments, do all your social media interconnecting, manage your SEOs (and simply do all the stuff that you need to do to optimise traffic…which does my head in, personally), research stuff, write stuff…pretty much run the whole bloody thing…which is what a lot of corporates and doctors etc do.

* Where does one find a VA?

I used Freelancer. It’s the largest outsourcing service site in the world and they’ve just launched here in Australia. I met them on a Morning Show segment and they offered to lend me a hand finding someone.

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