How to be Happy?

Last week The Guardian's Saturday magazine supplement had a lengthy series of articles devoted to the subject of 'How to be Happy'. Now, I generally avoid reading this supplement - it's usually full of articles middle-class tosspots smugly telling us of how they made their own sofa from reconditioned floorboards they rescued from a skip - but for some reason, I actually flicked through this edition. Amazingly, it wasn't, as I'd feared, full of tips from middle class tossers telling us that true happiness is to be found in making your own furniture from reclaimed rubbish, instead including a critical appraisal of all those wanky self-help books which equate happiness with wealth. Anyway, cutting to the chase, one of the things which studies had shown helped raise the 'happiness' and general well-being of people was keeping a journal of the things which irritated them or improved their lives. Funnily enough, I can vouch for this - ever since starting this blog as away to vent my spleen, I've been a far less angry individual. Giving shape and expression to one's daily anger and frustrations is a tremendously cathartic experience - it quire literally cleanses you of their poison.

All of which brings us to the vexed question of just how one does achieve 'happiness'? Frankly, I don't know. I do know that it has nothing to do with wealth or material possessions. I also know that I spent a lot of time looking in all the wrong places for happiness - career advancement, doomed relationships, fast cars and basically trying to be someone I wasn't. More recently, I thought that I could find some kind of peace in the classroom. I was wrong again. Just lately, I've been feeling the best and most contented I've been in years. A few weeks ago the usual exhaustion I felt at the end of the average working week suddenly lifted, all my aches and pains vanished and, most amazingly, I stopped wasting my time analysing past failed relationships. It was as if some raging inferno inside of me had finally burned itself out. Whilst the possibility remains that it could eventually re-ignite itself, for now, I'm glad it has blown out. For the first time in years I feel fully in control, and maybe that's the secret of happiness - achieving some degree of control over inner selves and no longer being a slave to anger, fear and irrationality. Perhaps those Vulcans in Star Trek had the right idea...