It started when the #100happydays hashtag started infiltrating photos on my Instagram feed. I finally looked up this happiness shenanigans to find out what it was about.
It seems that the concept was launched by Dmitri Golubnichy last year, firstly to promote and maintain his own happiness and latterly to spread his happy gospel to the world — via a 100 happiness challenge, asking people to log a photo of what made them happy every day for a 100 days . The thing about calling this a happiness challenge is that this offers the opportunity to fail it — in the same way that eating that one delicious cream cake is enough to make dieters fall hopelessly and wondrously off the salad wagon. And Golubnichy himself reports that 71% of people taking the challenge do not make it to 100 happy days.
Well failure isn't happiness-inducing, is it? If you have one happy day and you manage to capture it in a photo and then you put the photo up somewhere for others to see, you should be given a medal , life is busy enough.
Want to be happy? Why not take the challenge, but remove all of the rules.
When you’re happy and you record it then it should remind you to be happy again. If it doesn't — no worries. If you forget to record it — no worries. If you don’t do it for consecutive days — no worries. If you are actively unhappy today — no worries. Some weeks are like wading through hell at work, in relationships or when it’s your turn to have the family over for dinner.
But if you are not happy for 100 days YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE. Happiness is a truly subjective concept captured in a peal of laughter, a joyous sigh, a smile, and a million other ways. I therefore intend not to measure my happiness — because that automatically means I am comparing it to something, and that automatically impacts on my happiness.
I salute Golubnichy’s message (and saying his name makes me very happy); there is nothing wrong with a gentle reminder to be happy, but if I didn't log it it doesn't impinge on future happiness.
Let yourself off the happiness hook. Perhaps write it down once in a while and take a photo of those happy places. or don’t.
Right now, I am happy that I finished writing this post. Let’s call this happy moment #2464548338595… and counting.
