Rachel

the-happy-blog:

I spent the last few days at my first real festival. It’s safe to say I’m not a huge fan of camping, or spending significant amounts of time surrounded by people who have been drinking since 8am, so understandably a festival wouldn’t seem like an ideal way to spend a weekend. In the weeks leading up to my trip I decided all the standing around outside would be worth it with the prospect of topping up my tan while listening to music, but that plan didn’t really work out because it ended up raining most of the time. Spending all day slightly damp, then coming back to a leaking tent isn’t very enjoyable. But nevertheless, the weekend was made bearable by the great live music, the atmosphere and of course the realisation that I would be seeing Justin Bieber. This may all seem completely irrelevant but my point is that before leaving for the weekend I had no idea what I was in for, but somehow, that made it more exciting.

Uncertainty often makes us anxious and it can feel like an overly negative thing to have in your life, but without it, our existence would be utterly boring. Imagine waking up every morning knowing exactly what was going to happen, and then the same the next day and the one after. Your entire life would be spent either waiting for the good bits or dreading the bad bits. In truth, complete certainty would cause more anxiety because some uncertainty (also known as “variety”) is critical for an enjoyable and balanced life. Why would you want to know when bad things were going to happen to you? I have often heard people ask “Would you want to know when you’re going to die?”. Now I’m sure there are upsides about knowing your death date, I guess you’d know when to get started on your bucket list, but what a life you’d be living just counting down to the end. While uncertainty can cause us to worry, it is also the source of wonderful mystery which is more important to a happy life than it may seem. So remember next time you’ve got yourself in a flat panic about not knowing how something will turn out, the alternative would be so much worse.

the-happy-blog:

A few days back, my Dad and I were sitting at the table completing a jigsaw puzzle. It had been decided that the weather was poor enough for us to stay inside and not attempt a slightly chilly, windy day by the coast, as we had planned for much of that week. As time passed, we realised that the gloominess of the morning had passed and the sun was beginning to make an appearance. As much desire as we had to go and enjoy the inevitably passing sun, we couldn’t leave the puzzle unfinished. As we became agonisingly close to finishing the puzzle (we were on one of the tricky areas where it wasn’t black and white whether a piece was in the right place or not) we ended up putting random pieces of puzzle in until we found one that vaguely fit. Sometimes, we’d attempt to put a piece in and it wouldn’t just slot in (as the other correctly placed pieces would). I watched my dad, who whilst not being able to deal with the fact that the piece that “looked perfect” didn’t actually fit, was trying to force in pieces that were clearly not right. We decided on a general rule that if it had to be forced, it was wrong. Although this rule was created for future puzzles we may embark on, I think there is a greater importance of this rule within life.

Having to force things is usually a strong suggestion that something is wrong or needs to be altered so it ‘fits’, combined with an unnecessary panic to make it do so. Dissatisfying relationships, boring and uninspiring jobs are examples of areas in life where we try to force fit solutions rather than taking the time to do the right things properly . Being a fifteen year old I can’t talk out of experience, in other words, it’s safe to say that I’ve never experienced a relationship that I felt compelled to continue trying with even though it had ended. Similarly, I have never been stuck in a career that I feel i’m forcing myself to be happy in where in reality I couldn’t think of anything worse than waking up on a Monday morning and going to work. I am however, sure that I will encounter such problems later in my life. When I stumble across issues like these I’d like to think that I would handle them in a more ‘go-with-the-flow’ kind of attitude, which I’m sure is a whole lot harder than it sounds but rewarding nonetheless. I think in the end, it’s easy in the short term to force things in order to avoid changing them. But to correctly complete your puzzle, you shouldn’t force things that don’t belong, even if this means making changes that delay and unsettle you.