A Question Of Balance

A conversation earlier today with my good friend, Martin Lennon, sparked my brain momentarily out of its current sleep-deprived state (who the hell was it said that 18-month-olds' sleeping patterns improve with age?), and set me pondering (as I'm unfortunately prone to do, especially when something needs to be done).

So I'd like to ask anyone who's reading this a couple of serious questions:

1) Are you happy?

2) If so, why? Alternatively, if not, what are you doing/what do you think you personally can/need to do, in order to become happy?

All comments, anonymous or otherwise, gratefully received.

I hope this doesn't sound overly-personal and intrusive - I'm genuinely trying to come to a better understanding of how other people view the notion of being 'happy', or how that can be achieved. One of the things Martin & I touched on was the problem of distinguishing the subtle boundaries between factors affecting us that are entirely outwith our personal control; those that may have arisen unwittingly, or unforeseeably, from decisions or actions we took in the past (which seemed like the best possible at the time); and those where an opportunity for 'happiness' is within an individual's grasp, if only they were prepared to suffer the necessary short-term consequences in order to attain it.

We also spouted a fair bit of blather and nonsense, it must be said, but then that's probably what we do best...it's a survival strategy born of many years of "function-band-stress" necessity.

For myself, I can't honestly give any answers right now. Too much uncertainty, too many variables, and, as mentioned above, currently nowhere near enough processing power available...dab hand with the old quick-sidestep-plausible-excuse, me.

Seriously though, if people could take the time to respond, that'd be great - even those who've been sadly misdirected by the all-powerful Google and its ilk. My current favourite search entry that's found it's way here: "how to make a biscuit tin banjo", from someone based in Luton, England. (In fact, adding 'England' there was entirely superfluous, since there's only one "Luton" in the whole world - quite possibly one more than the world actually needs, but that's another debate entirely.)

Hopefully there'll be something more amusing next time round...