Happiness is Just 100 Days Away

Lately I have been seeing the hashtag #100happydays everywhere on social media with people tagging photos, status updates, and videos proclaiming how happy they are. As someone who makes a concerted effort to be a positive person (I am a big fan of Gala Darling’s Radical Self Love concept, and I try to actively put together a ‘Things I Love Thursday’ list of the many blessings in my life), I became curious about this happiness challenge and wanted to learn more.

Thus I sought out the 100 Happy Days website which states that 71% of people who began the challenge – which essentially involves choosing your favourite social media platform and making a post about what is providing you happiness each day – failed due to lack of time. Yet a study produced by Business Insider Intelligence in 2013 revealed that Americans spend an average of 37 minutes per day on social media revealing that we obviously do have the time, and we are using it to browse or post on social media websites.

Yupp, I'm guilty of being Facebook addicted.

Obviously I am not against social media as I actively use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, IdeasTap, etc. as platforms for personal and professional connections, but as someone who has studied communication and language, I am consciously aware of how these platforms are often used by people solely for the purpose of generating a false sense of self-esteem through carefully curating a positive online image which may not be reflective of someone’s actual life. (See this article on social media narcissism and low self-esteem from Scientific American for a slightly more compelling argument than ‘So I’ve noticed…’).

We’ve all experienced this in real life – the friend who talks a big game about how fantastic his/her life is, how things are going so so brilliantly, but then breaks down during a booze-soaked night out to confess through a faceful of tears that everything is falling apart (and by friend, I clearly mean my own emotionally delicate self). It only makes sense that this phenomenon has carried over into the virtual world where everything we say and do can be moderated to fit a standard of how we wish our lives could be. We spend hours carefully moulding our online presence to fit the idealisation of how we want others to view us, which is why my skepticism about the #100happydays fad has been so pronounced.

Of the many things bringing me happiness right now: rainbows and having seen Niagara Falls for the first time this weekend! (Also my lovely souvenirs from the weekend including a bottle of gin - made from grapes!, some Cabernet wine jelly, and a tin of organic pear and cranberry chutney. Yumm!)

Through having experienced the positive benefits of mindfulness in my own life, I can obviously understand the rewards of participating in such an exercise – a list on the website includes symptoms such as being in a better mood, feeling more optimistic, realising how lucky you truly are, and falling in love (aawww!) – yet I can’t help but remain wary of the fact that some people are not using the activity as a means of achieving inner peace but rather as a way to show their peers just how goddamn happy they are!

I would hope that most people are participating for the right reasons, as seeing photos of friends and loved ones having a good time on a night out, eating delicious food, playing with their pets, and just feeling great really does provide a boost of positivity on a dreary day. When all is said and done though, anyone secure in their emotions – happy or sad – should be able to process them without social media.

Other current happiness inducers: having discovered my dream house (this will be transplanted to England obviously), working like a madwoman on a novella, humid summer weather, and moody torch songs (currently humming: Thieves by She & Him and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? by Amy Winehouse).

The moral of the story: let’s continue to bring on the positive, spread love and happiness and all those great things. But let’s do it for the right reasons: because we want the world to be a better place, and not because we want others to feel inferior.

CURRENTLY READING: Sweet Nothing by Carmela Circelli, an excellent book about taking back the pleasure of Being in a world where our existence has come to be defined by rushing through life and getting lost in the rat race of consumerism, technology, and materialism.