The Many Colours of Happiness

As part of my course, I was required to read a lecture from personal essayist Robert Dessaix. While the whole thing was interesting, I particularly liked when he started talking about the idea of having to be ‘busy’, and how we are missing out on so much of life because of it. He said that when people asked him if he was busy, he always answered, to their complete surprise and quite often, disapproval: “No.” And this really stuck with me. There is this idea that we have to be using every second as productively as possible, that we should be working and studying and fitting in as much as we can, that to see someone not follow this path seems almost offensive. One of my friends decided to simply focus on her studies this semester, letting her boyfriend support her while she finishes up her degree. And while I hate to admit, we all did judge her a bit because of this.  After all, she had all of this free time . And free time, as you know, is lazy. It’s unproduc...

I am feeling very optimistic today. Back story:  I have a habit of deciding on something and then wanting it to happen right that second . It’s like with my previous degrees. I don’t like it? BOOM I dropped it. I want to start doing my Masters even though I’m already doing a degree and I don’t have the freaking time? SIGN ME UP. I decide that I haven’t been social enough this week even though all of my assignments are due and I have had maybe two hours sleep in three days? Break out the wine baby, I’m inviting the girls around. I’m not a patient person at the best of times and it turns out I’m much worse when it comes to full time job hunting. On May the 31 st I started putting in applications. And by putting in applications I mean I have put in over fifty. That is not an exaggeration- my life has literally been writing essays about how awesome and talented I am in the hopes of fooling prospective employers. By June the 2 nd I was in the depths of despair....

I haven’t ever wanted kids. Not even when I was younger, when everyone around me was either a child themselves or a parent and I assumed that all women had to have them. Because every tantrum, every complaint that ‘so and so got more than me’, every ‘I hate you mum’ that came out of my young mouth, made me even more certain that I never wanted to be a mother. My plan until I entered year seven was to marry someone that loved kids, and make the husband and children all live in a different house to me. The husband could visit on weekends, and I would see the kids on their birthdays. But in year seven I met a very street-wise girl who informed that I didn’t actually have to have children. You can’t even imagine the relief. It was like all my dreams had been answered. In fact, I would go so far as to say they had been. What she didn’t tell me was how other people would react to a girl that didn’t want to procreate. It was fine when I was younger. They would laugh, mess up my hair...

I read this lovely little zine called ‘ Spoonful: A Happiness Companion’ that is…well it’s a happiness companion. It features quirky poems about happiness, well-written stories about appreciating every day things, and, my favourite, a section about celebrating failure. In it, people write what their biggest failure was and what they learned from it. Since I like the idea so much, I decided to do my own today. Firstly I would just like to point out that this isn’t my biggest failure. Being awkward, uncoordinated and impatient has led to quite a few failures in my twenty four years, not the least being dropping out of not one, but two degrees (yes, you read that right) with less than six months to go. But one thing I have noticed in the zine, and in my own experiences, is that it’s the little things that can really break you. Things that are absolutely no big deal can seem like the most important thing in the universe for reasons that no one else could possibly understand (and whic...

I know that I said I would be away for six months, but since my last post things have changed. Or rather, I changed things. I guess I just got sick of living my life based on expectations of myself that were, for lack of a better word, stupid. Boy oh boy were they stupid. Here was I, the least practical person on the planet with no commonsense and a bad habit of daydreaming at the most inconvenient moments, studying TEACHING. Apparently you need common-sense and an attention span better than that of a goldfish to teach the new generation. Who knew? So half-way through the semester, with six months to go, I dropped out. I realised that the only reason I stayed with it for so long was because of fear. I was scared of venturing from the nice, safe, career-orientated practical , to the uncertain and risky creative . But I’m NOT practical. I am a creative dreamer without a shred of common sense and realism in my body. Unfortunately creative isn’t safe. Creative leads to degrees and ...

This has been leading up for a while now, I'm sure none of you are surprised, but I will be taking a six month break from blogging. As silly as it sounds, starting this blog really did change my life. It gave me space to organise my thoughts, to understand the world and my life a little better, to meet amazing and inspiring people, plus it taught me just how dear words are to me. And it got me to start writing again, which is something that has sweetened every day and made anything seem possible. But my trip away gave me space and time to evaluate. I was so busy last year; I pushed myself so much to make the most of every second that I ended up dreaming and worrying the year away. This year I will be finishing my education degree as well as continuing on with my masters- so I will have five classes on the go at any one time, three full days of work, two days of prac- and in between dance class, performances, article and story writing, piano practice, yoga, visiting family, ti...

Hey guys, here is the last guest post and I couldn't have picked someone better (if I do say so myself). I have only known Vanisha's blog for a short time but I'm already hooked. It's funny, honest and there are always beautiful photos to drool over. PLUS she lives in Canberra and does a much better job of summing up my awesome home-town than I do. Enjoy! Hello! I'm Vanisha from Vanisha's In Life...Australia  Kaylia invited me to write a guest post whilst she's on her fabulous holiday! Being asked to write a guest post almost feels like being invited into someone's home. I'm honored. Kaylia said write about "anything" so I thought I'd write about an amazing trip I recently took.  A lot of people find it odd that of all places, we decided to got to Timor Lestse. Let me preface this decision a little. It all started in front of this fire place in the middle of winter in the Kangaroo Valley. Two acquaintances sat. Trying to get war...