Welcome to the first bi-weekly post of The Happiness Portfolio, my attempt at making the economics of happiness work for you. Our goal is to discover and explore opportunities to use economic thinking to overcome some common missteps in the lifelong, daily, and moment-to-moment pursuit of happiness. My initial thought is to use quick conversations, like the one below, to accomplish this but I will remain process agnostic and open to the demands of the future.
Each of these conversations will begin with a short prompt or question to provide a frame, include a short description of my perspective, and end with an opportunity to practice the particular tool or skillset we’ve discussed - the first few conversations will be focused on the titular “Happiness Portfolio” and will then careen off into the vast and tremendously personal depths of happiness.
One important note - having no formal training or accreditation in happiness, I’ll be speaking primarily from my own experience and those that have been shared with me. Mileage toward enlightenment will vary, but I can guarantee an entertaining ride.
Prompt: What are some things that make me happy?
Perspective
Fresh out the gate with a big one. This is the question that motivated me to first develop my happiness portfolio along with the realization that I hadn’t really spent much time thinking about it.
The next question I asked myself, and close friends who were unwittingly along for the ride, was “Do I think my life would improve meaningfully if I really thought about what makes me happy?” with the benefit of hindsight I can tell you that the answer to that question is a resounding “yes”.
Do I think my life would improve meaningfully if I really thought about what makes me happy?
This question opened my life up in some substantive, fundamental, and unexpected ways and I sincerely hope it does the same for you.
Practice
Find ten minutes in the next two weeks to start writing a list, in no specific order, of things that make you happy. The goal is to write down as many things as possible, so while you’re writing try to recognize any thoughts or judgments about what makes you happy and set them aside for these ten minutes. I promise they’ll be there when you finish.
If you attempt this and feel as though you’ve run out of things after two or three minutes, commit to spending the next seven or eight minutes looking at a mostly blank piece of paper secure in the knowledge that “writing lists” will not be on your list.
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to start this conversation and for being open to this practice. I’ll see you in two weeks when we’ll discuss different types of categorization for our sources of happiness.
Until then, be well, and if you know anyone who might be interested in joining our conversation then use the button below to share The Happiness Portfolio with them.