Pebbles

Sometimes it feels like we spend a great deal of our lives trying to balance all the ingredients & things that together will make us happy. Like pebbles on the shore. These do vary somewhat from person to person, but they are likely to include elements like: love, friendships & family, health&body, finances&work, self worth&development. It is an exhausting process and more often than not we find that at one particular point in time we feel like we have mastered some but not all of these elements.

The problem is that these things often work against each other. For instance if we are out there having a great time travelling the world with our mates, we might find that we feel out of shape and broke. Or, if work is going great, we might find that we are not putting a lot of effort in our relationships or we do not have time to cultivate our passions.

This is a bit of a pickle, and might just lead us to keep doing this 'balancing act' throughout our lives, as though there was some sort of mathematical formula of happiness that we are trying to uncover and exploit for the rest of our lives.

In turn this might make us feel that ' we are not quite there yet'.

To make things more complex, the standards that we use to assess success for each of the 'pebbles that make up happiness' changes over time. For instance, what we regard as successful at work, or the value we place or money becomes more demanding as we grow older. If when we started working out the El Dorado was being able to run 5km, by the time we run 5km we feel that we need to run a marathon.

Growing, developing and becoming better people is obviously something positive - however it does make it very hard to ever feel we have fully arrived.

Despite all this there are moments in life where we do feel truly happy and content with what's going on. It might be a great night out with our best friends, or the day of our wedding, or the day we finally achieved that long wanted promotion, etc etc. If we think about it, these are not moments where 'we have it all', where we have achieved that elusive balance of pebbles. More likely, these moments of happiness are just instants where we simply do not wish anything more than we already have.

Expectations play a massive role in the way we perceive happiness. And since we tend to be quite bad at predicting what will make us happy then it is key that we proactively manage our expectations in such a way that we do not set up ourselves objectives that might end up failing to bring us that happiness we had expected them to bring us. For instance, at work we might set up ourselves an objective to become a Managing Director because we believe that we will feel happy from a career perspective once we get there. However, after sweating over it for years and finally getting there we might discover that being an MD did not do anything to make us happier and that we should have focussed more on other things in our lives. We should never second guess happiness.

That is why it is worth spending time understanding what is the baseline of our own happiness, the rough ingredients that bring us happiness. I think that this baseline is less changeable over time, and in many ways it is easier to determine that the end point where we guess we should get to. For instance, whilst the definition of a top holiday will become more demanding over the years, the fact that we love spending time with our best mates has not really changed since we were broke students.

The other thing that I think is important is what I call 'the ten years time test' i.e. asking ourselves how we will feel about something in ten years time. It is fair to say that things like the missed promotion will not seem so important after all, whilst the fact that we did not cultivate our passion for painting is more likely to stick around as a regret. The ten years time test is a great way to determine the baseline of our own happiness.

In practical terms our baseline will include things like determining what is the minimum amount of money that we require to do the things we love, and then accepting that anything above that will please us, but it will not make us happier people (this might be liberating and make us realise that we can change job/career and still be happy).

Happiness then is not about constantly trying to balance a pile of pebbles, it is more like stripping down the expectations that we have imposed on ourselves and live life in such a way that our older self will look back with no regrets.

26

As I get out of my hotel in Singapore and the hot air engulfs me in its tropical embrace, it all feels like everything is different and familiar at the same time. My 5 minutes taxi commute to work could not be farther away from the Jubilee line on a winter morning. Alas, the mental pictures I have taken of both experiences seem to speak to each other, they feel part of the same story. I look out of the window towards the harbour and I marvel once more at the simple fact that I am here. Asia's dawn is so big and enchanting. Some significant truth seem to linger just below the surface, as though somebody has whispered a secret to me, but the colours distract me and I'll never understand. We turn left, then right, quite gently. People wait for a taxi or they are walking. I leave them all behind whilst I press 26.

Euler's Identity

 

The Euler's identity is regarded as one of the most beautiful mathematical formulae and I must say I have always quite liked it myself.

The most important mathematical symbols play their part, from the transcendental numbers e and Pi,  the imaginary number i, the revolutionary 0 from ancient India and the unity 1.
The remarkable thing about this equation is how numbers and symbols that were created in completely different geographies, cultures and centuries come together in this ultimate truism.


I have often thought that life sometimes feels like that :when things come together we suddenly realize how they are linked in the big picture. We might call it 'epiphany', or 'moment of clarity' but ultimately we refer to a sudden understanding of the big picture. No matter how the different experiences, choices we make etc might pull us in different directions - or make it hard for us to understand what's going on - at the end our Euler's identity reveals itself, made of all the bits and bobs that we have picked along the way.

Tasmania

One of my highlights from this summer was without doubt our holiday in Tasmania. When I grew up in Sardinia for me Tasmania was a mystical far away land which existed only in a cartoon I used to watch (yes, THAT one). I would have never imagined that one day I would have ended up going there.

And what a great place it is! From Sydney it takes about 1.5hrs flight to reach Hobart - the main city in the island. A few airlines make the trip several times a day so it is not drama at all to get there. As you land into Hobart ou immediately realise how beautiful the place is and how nature still plays a dominant role in the landscape of this place. A few people compare it to the South island of New Zealand, though i personally thought Tasmania had its own character, landscape and personality. Hobart is beyond charming, with its dramatic natural harbour setting, historical buildings from the convict era, and a passion for amazing food and wine. Manuka honey from Tasmania in unbelievable!

The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is such a surprise and definitely one of the best and most interesting museums I have ever visited (you can get there by boat and the whole place is original and full of amazing pieces).

Tasmania is the place where the Brits sent out the worst of their convicts from the XVIII century and there are a plethora of places you can find out more about that history, like in the daunting Port Arthur (2hrs drive from Hobart). It is really worth coming here and spend a few hours exploring this colony and its buildings.

If you like trekking and nature there is a lot to do (I am told the West Coast is wild and beautiful, though we didn't make it there), but if you like me are slightly lazy - a couple of hours trek to Wine Glass bay is an amazing thing to do.

If you add to this amazing wine tasting in the Tamar valley, Tasmania is a real winner and definitely one of the highlights so far of my life Down Under - definitely going back!

For reviews of places where to eat/stay in Tasmania have a look at my Trip Advisor reviews http://www.tripadvisor.com/members-reviews/youngprofessionalUK

Australia Day

The other day (26th January) the nation celebrated Australia Day. This is a pretty big deal over here - and the typical thing to do is to have a BBQ party and spend the day drinking in the sun. The radio plays the list of the top 100 songs of the year, which a lot of people listen to whilst partying. There are few other traditions like the ANZAC biscuits, but I reckon the real star of the day are beer and meat.  This year we were guests at our friend Maria's near Clovelly. There were about twenty people, a lot of Irish, and me as the token Italian. They put up a great party - and even the weather (that has been a bit pants lately) was kind enough to allow us to fully enjoy a few steaks in Maria's back garden (which by the way was full of very scarily looking and voluminous spiders).
Maria and her housemates fed me one too many vodka rich cocktails and shots, so the whole thing started off as a civilised affair ( with conversation of the type :'what a wonderful day') and ended up in a bit of a blur.
Great day!

Village Life - Darlinghurst

I have used the sentence ' there is a real village feel to it' a number of times, but since we moved to Darlinghurst I finally understand what it really means.
There is a feeling of familiarity in this area. Everything feels close, convenient, the vibe is relaxed and slow paced as you would expect from a manicured town rather than a capital city. Our local pub (The Green Park - really good place) is just opposite to where we live, the gym is five minutes walk, there are numerous cafes and great restaurants (including our favourites) literally down the road, we can walk to work, you can hear the bells from the nearby church ring on a Sunday morning, you can jump on a bus to Bondi beach and be there in 20 minutes. All in all this place is ace and I recommend it to people that are new to Sydney or on holiday (and want to have the nightlife at their doorsteps - staying at the beaches can be slightly remote).

I feel very happy that we own a flat here.

For my review of restaurants in Sydney go to : http://www.tripadvisor.com/members-reviews/youngprofessionalUK

Let's Dance Little Stranger

Sometimes a specific moment of our life gets linked (with inexplicable strength) to a song, sound or smell. It is as though those things get charged with some sense that our conscious selves cannot really grasp. They seem to explain things better than just words, or even our thoughts.
These are songs that reappear in our lives and stop us in our tracks -they take us back to the past and at the same time redefine the present.

One of these songs for me is Dance With Me by the French act Nouvelle Vague.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekQZPozjCX8

The other night Dave and I went to see Nouvelle Vague play at the Sydney Festival (At the barracks). Rachel and her friends were there too. I think that this band is brilliant and whilst at most gigs I can lose my concentration span after a few songs, Nouvelle Vague seem to carry the whole crowd all the way through. The self confident sexy French attitude of the two lead singers has definitely something to do with it.
When this song came up I felt propelled back to London, to the Flat of Dreams (this is how we called the place in Marylebone where we used to live). This is the song that lent itself as a background to the forming of a friendship that is so dear to me.  It takes me back on a train towards a ballroom venue in South London. It also reminds me of fun times when I rediscovered and reinvented my whole life back in 2007.

The other night I remembered seeing Nouvelle Vague in Camden Town (at the Round House) a few years back. Just like this time back then I felt in a good place. I thought about how life has moved on since then and how lucky I feel for that past and this present. Not just for myself, but for the people in my life that that song connects me to.