I closed the year 2020 on this blog with a rather depressing publication about stress and lack of sleep. I could say it was in line with the general spirit of last year, although I could have written an equally positive post about my life in 2020. I reckon negative events can shadow a whole year or period of our lives, far from me to underestimate tragedies and losses, but in general one year is generally too long and rich of events to be able to be qualified as entirely negative or positive.
All this to say that I would like to inaugurate the new year with a positive article. Last year in March I attended the very popular course “The science of well-being”, kindly offered for free by Yale on Coursera. The idea is to help students to have a happier life by understanding what makes us happy and unhappy through a scientific approach. The content is extremely interesting, however I am convinced that this course wouldn’t have had the world-wide success it had without its teacher, Laurie Santos, who has a pedagogical approach, a soothing voice and a great ability to explain and retain the listener’s attention. She offers several exercises throughout the course, from practicing sport to meditation. Two of these involve kindness and social connection. Basically the idea is that performing an act of kindness, even to a complete stranger, makes us feel good, and so does social connection, that does not only mean spending time with friends, but also reaching out to total strangers, for instance the person sitting next to us on public transportation. I had the chance to put this into practice last week. I didn’t do it because of the exercise, on the other way round something I did happened to be a perfect example of how to carry out this practice. I will explain. I recently moved to another flat and dug out objects from drawers and boxes that I hadn’t used in two years. I finally decided to get rid of them, but instead of throwing them away or giving them to a charity organisation I decided to share them on a Facebook group. I can confirm that it made me feel good to meet and exchange a few words with the person who received my small gift. One of them even brought me a pack of biscuits to thank me.
Happiness and freedom are a constant struggle but small things definitely contribute to our wellbeing. If along the way we make someone’s day, even better, right?
If you are interested in the topic, besides the course on Coursera you can also check Laurie Santos’ podcasts “The Happiness Lab“, also available on Spotify.
Blabbering of a millennial 