Stuff That Interests Me

I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but many of us make life more difficult than it needs to be. Achieving basic happiness, or at least avoiding what depresses us, might actually be quite simple.Is happiness, simply, when reality exceeds expectation?When I was a young man I was chronically ambitious. I would lie in bed as a student, dreaming about my future, making Faustian pacts, yet nothing would satisfy me. You could have offered me fame, glory, wealth, the keys to the city and more, and it would not have been enough. I wanted everything. When we discussed our futures, my friend, Gideon, though it pains me to admit, gifted and hugely competent, but not remotely ambitious, used to say: “I just want to be happy.” I thought that was loser talk. Looking back, he was probably right.How often do you watch a film or a show because somebody was raving about it for it to turn out nothing like as good as you were hoping? You end up disappointed. But if you saw the same film with no or low expectations, and it’s pretty