Are You A Happy Person ? I was reading this article about the happiest man in the world in the Indy, where academic / Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard explains that you only need to put in about 10,000 hours of meditation in order to become supremely happy. 10,000 hours ! Or roughly 1,250 working days, 250 weeks or five years out of your life (based on working weeks, I thought you might want weekends off). This is all very well if you can find five years to sit on your arse saying "Om" with a mystical smile on your face (you're a university student for example), but for the rest of us I just can't see it working. Anyway, as always, I get sidetracked and digress. I don't really know why I am so happy, but I am, and I think that on the whole, as I get older, I seem to get a bit happier. I was much more stressed out and shouty as a younger chef, but that's behind me now, I'd much rather get on well with my staff than have them terrorized into submission. I still have the odd moment of course, I'm no angel, but it's all flash in the pan these days, once I've raised my voice at work it's all done, I'm not bearing a grudge for the rest of the day. I'm happy at work, I still enjoy cooking, especially when I can get on with it without endless distractions, although I admit I can get a bit grumpy when the phone starts to ring constantly, this always happens when you're doing something really messy like making pastry or gutting fish. Music makes me happy, I know you might find this odd considering the loud, angry forms of music I listen to, but I'm quite content with The Exploited, Metallica or System Of A Down thundering away. Reading makes me happy, when I'm reading a book I am actually in the book, the outside world seems to fade away until I'm taking part in the written words. My default state of being could be set as reading, it's also a boredom threshold thing, I need something to do. Blogging makes me happy, I enjoy by bits of writing, sometimes tv and films make me happy, but I prefer the interactivity of the web to be honest. I'm happy when I'm with people, playing games with my friends, out for dinner with Mrs YS, days of daft running around with the kids, chatting with chatty chef Robyn and the staff. I'm also very happy in my own company, I love my solitary days out roaming the hills and Dales of Yorkshire, I'm happy in my own head as the hills rise and fall and the weather changes, even on the days of most awful weather, I'm still happier to be out there seeing it for myself. I happy when I'm travelling, I'm not a keen driver but being driven is great (you can read books then!), flying is mostly ok unless it's a long haul flight. I like going to different places and trying new foods and drinks. I am not happy with the state of the world of course, there are a lot of things I would like to see changed, the current Government of self helpers, liars and charlatans, the war in Iraq, world poverty, global warming, I'm concerned about all these things, and though they do make me angry at times, they don't make me happy in the long run. I have a lot of things to be grateful for, a good family, true and honest friends, I have a decent job even if I do sometimes work daft hours, but hey, I've got a job right! I'm healthy enough, I get the odd twinge from my back but I'm hardly ever ill, almost never in fact. I also honestly believe that is a correlation between a positive mental state and illness, people that think they are always ill are oddly enough, often ill. Me, I don't believe I get ill, and I drink red wine, and I keep fit a bit even if I am carrying some extra weight. Insomnia gets me sometimes, I can never predict when it is going to happen, and it is harder to be happy when you're exhausted, but you can't let yourself worry about it when it's not happening, that way lies madness. I'm also a bit of a worrier sometimes, and this may be connected to the bouts of insomnia, even though I've cooked huge functions dozens of times, I still sometimes lie awake pondering the next day's menu when I know I have a 100+ people dining, I just want it all to go well. I'd have to say though, that on the whole, I am happy, I mean I'm not bouncing off the walls madly, zany happy, or even hippy dippy spend my time in a meditative daze happy, but I'm quite content for long periods of time. I agree with the Buddhist Ricard when he says you have to try to be happy, I'm sure that both anger, happiness and hatred are all self feeding states of mind, when you get locked into one it's hard to break away from, so you may as well get locked into the happiness groove. 10,00 hours wearing an orange bin liner ? Well if it works for you, if it makes you happy then do it. For me though, I'll see you on the hills (from a distance obviously), and then we could meet for dinner and wine afterwards. Stay happy. Yorkshiresoul.