THE RULES OF HAPPINESS

Happiness is not a permanent state of affairs. It’s a transient thing. There will always be bad days, dark times, bleak years even. Understanding this is the first step to greater happiness, in an ironic way, because once you stop expecting to be happy all the time, it makes you less unhappy when you aren’t happy. If you see what I mean. In any case, without the lows we wouldn’t appreciate the highs, and happiness is very much about appreciation.

Now, while you can’t avoid the lows, there’s plenty you can do to feel happy as often as you can, and for as long as you can. So that your life’s graph of highs and lows is weighted as heavily as possible towards the highs.

Happiness is habit forming. The more you can train yourself to feel happy, the easier it will become. And yes, I know to some people that the very idea you need to ‘train yourself’ to be happy won’t sit very well because it makes it sound like an effort, and you might think that you shouldn’t have to try to be happy. It’s something that should just happen – that you’re entitled to even. Well, sorry. You will need to put a bit of effort in, but the upsides are so big that surely it’s worth it. And the training is much easier than, say, going to the gym – it’s just about learning to think differently.

You’ll find that most of the Rules we’ve already covered in The Rules of Life relate to happiness in some way, and several of them are especially relevant. However, for this edition here are ten extra Rules which are all absolutely central to living a happy life.