by Matt Haig
We are encouraged to buy stuff to make ourselves happy because companies are encouraged to make more money to make themselves more successful. It is also addictive. It isn’t addictive because it makes us happy. It is addictive because it doesn’t make us happy. We buy something and we enjoy it – we enjoy the newness of it – for a little while but then we get used to having it, we acclimatise, and so we need something else. We need to feel that sense of change, of variety. Something newer, something better, something upgraded. And the same thing happens again.
And over time we get used to more and more stuff.
And this applies to everything.
The Instagrammer who enjoys getting a lot of likes for their selfie will soon seek more likes, and be disappointed if the number stays the same. The grade A student will come to feel like a failure if they get a single B. The entrepreneur who becomes rich will seek to earn more money. The gym-goer who likes their new sculpted body will want to train harder, and harder. The worker who gets the promotion they wanted will soon want another one. With every achievement, acquisition or purchase the bar is raised.
I once thought I’d be happy for ever if I got articles published. Then a book published. Then if I could get another book published. Then if a book became a bestseller. And then if another one could. Then if it became a number one bestseller. Then if the film rights were sold. And so on. And I did, like lots of people, get happy, fleetingly, at each career goal I set myself, but my mind quickly got used to the previous achievement and found a new goal. So, the more I got, the more I needed to get in order to stay level.
The more ‘success’ you get, the easier it is to be disappointed by not getting things. The only difference is that now no one feels sorry for you.
No matter what we buy or achieve, the feelings don’t last. A sports champion always wants another win. The millionaire always wants another million. The spotlighthungry star wants more fame. Just as the alcoholic wants another drink and the gambler wants another bet.
But there are always going to be diminishing returns.
The child with a hundred toys is going to play with each new one less and less.
And think about it. If you could afford a holiday ten times more expensive than your last holiday, would you feel ten times more relaxed? I doubt it. If you could spend ten times longer looking at your Twitter feed, would you be ten times more informed? Of course not. If you spent twice as long at work would you get twice as much done? Research suggests you wouldn’t. If you could buy a car ten times more expensive than your current one would it get you from A to B ten times quicker? Nope. If you bought more anti-ageing creams would you age less with each extra purchase? Also nope.
You are conditioned to want more. Often this conditioning comes from companies who themselves are conditioned, collectively, to want more. Wanting more is the default setting.
But just as there is only one planet – a planet with finite resources – there is also only one you. And you also have a finite resource – time. And, let’s face it, you can’t multiply yourself. An overloaded planet cajoles us into overloaded lives but, ultimately, you can’t play with all the toys. You can’t use all the apps. You can’t be at all the parties. You can’t do the work of 20 people. You can’t be up to speed on all the news. You can’t wear all eleven of your coats at once. You can’t watch every must-see show. You can’t live in two places at once. You can buy more, you can acquire more, you can work more, you can earn more, you can strive more, you can tweet more, you can watch more, you can want more, but as each new buzz diminishes there comes a point where you have to ask yourself: what is all this for?
How much extra happiness am I acquiring? Why am I wanting so much more than I need?
Wouldn’t I be happier learning to appreciate what I already have?
Simple ideas for a new beginning
– Awareness. Be aware of how much time you are spending on your phone, of how much the news is messing with your mind, of how your attitudes to work are changing, of how many pressures you feel, and how many of them stem from problems of modern life, of being connected into the world’s nervous system. Awareness becomes a solution. Just as being aware of your hand on a hot stove means you can take your hand off the stove, being aware of the invisible sharks of modern life helps you to avoid them.
– Wholeness. The deficiencies you are made to feel, that society seems to want you to feel, you don’t have to feel. You were born how you were meant to be, and remain so. You will never be anyone else, so don’t try to be. You have no understudy. You are the one who is here to be you. So, don’t compare, don’t judge yourself on the opinion of people who have never been you.
– The world is real, but your world is subjective. Changing your perspective changes your planet. It can change your life. One version of multiverse theory states that we create a new universe with every decision we make. You can sometimes enter a better universe simply by not checking your phone for ten minutes.
– Less is more. An overloaded planet leads to an overloaded mind. It leads to late nights and light sleep. It leads to worrying about unanswered emails at three in the morning. In extreme cases, it leads to panic attacks in the cereal aisle. It’s not ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’, as the Notorious B.I.G. track once put it. It’s more everything, more problems. Simplify your life. Take away what doesn’t need to be there.
– You already know what is significant. The things that matter are obviously the things you would truly miss deeply if they were gone. These are the things you should spend your time on, when you can. People, places, books, food, experiences, whatever. And sometimes to enjoy these more you have to strip other things back. You need to break free.
The important stuff
A WEEK AGO I went to a charity shop with stuff I’d accumulated and offloaded it. It felt good. Not only charitable, but cleansing. The house is free of a lot of my clutter now. Clothes I never wear, aftershaves I’ve never sprayed, two chairs no one sits on, old DVDs I’ll never watch again, even – gasp – some books I will never read.
‘Are you sure you want to get rid of all this?’ Andrea had asked, staring at the landscape of bin bags in the hallway. Even she – a natural-born clearer-outer – was taken aback.
‘Yeah. Think so.’
The thing is that in the actual process of throwing things out, I ended up valuing the things I had more. For instance, while I was discarding some old DVDs I discovered one I not only wanted to keep, but also re-watch. It’s a Wonderful Life. And I watched it two nights later.
I definitely don’t want to give you a fear of missing out – and it’s hardly of the moment – but if you have never watched It’s a Wonderful Life try to. It’s not schmaltzy. It’s earnest and sentimental, yes, but honestly so. It’s raw. It has incredible power. About the big importance of small lives. About why we matter. About the difference a life can make. About why we should stay alive. That film is never a waste of time. It helps you value time.
This is just an example of how removing the mediocre stuff that clogs up your time and living room helps to highlight the good stuff. Similarly, limiting your access to news helps you to prioritise what’s important when you do catch up with it. Working fewer hours helps to make those hours more productive. And so on. Declutter. Edit your life.
But, to be honest, the clearing out was actually the easy bit. It’s easy to halve the number of clothes in your wardrobe. It’s easy to put a better filter on your emails and to turn off your notifications. It’s easy to be kinder to people online. It’s relatively easy to go to bed a bit earlier. It’s relatively easy to become more aware of your breathing, and to make time for half an hour of yoga a day. It’s relatively easy to charge your phone overnight outside your bedroom. (Okay, that’s still a hard one, but I’m doing it.)
The really difficult bit is how to change attitudes inside yourself. How do you edit those?
Those attitudes ingrained in you by society. Attitudes about what you need to do an
d be to be valued. Attitudes about how you should be working or earning or consuming or watching or living. Attitudes about how your mental health is separate from your physical health. Attitudes about all the things you are encouraged by marketers and politicians to fear. About all the wants and lacks you are supposed to feel in order to keep the economy and social order going.
Yes. Not easy. But acceptance seems to be the key.
Accepting who you are. Accepting the reality of society, but also the reality of yourself, and not feeling like you’re incomplete. It’s that feeling of lacking that fills our houses and minds with clutter. Try to stay your full self. A complete, whole human being, here for no other purpose than to be you.
‘The thing is to free one’s self,’ wrote Virginia Woolf, struggling with the task. ‘To let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.’
By the way, I would be lying if I said I was there already. I am so not there. I am closer, but not even vaguely there. I doubt I will ever be totally there, in that blissful state of nirvana beyond the nervous world of technology and consumerism and distraction. With a mind as clear as a mountain stream. There is no finishing line. It’s not about being perfect. In fact, punishing yourself for not being perfect is part of the whole problem. So, accepting where I am – improved and imperfect – is an ongoing task, but a massively rewarding one.
Knowing the things that are unhealthy makes it a lot easier to protect yourself.
It’s the same with food and drink. If you know chocolate bars and Coca-Cola are unhealthy then it doesn’t mean you are never going to consume them. But it possibly means you might have less of them, and maybe even enjoy them more when you have them, as it becomes more special.
So, instead of block-watching five hours of TV I now just try to watch a single show.
Instead of spending a whole afternoon on social media, I’ll spend the occasional ten minutes, always noting the time on the computer when I log on so I can keep track. I try to do kind deeds and good things where I can. Nothing heroic, but the usual – give a bit to charity, talk with the homeless, help people with their mental health, offer up a train seat. Little micro-kindnesses. Not just to be selfless but because doing good things is quite healing. It makes you feel good. A type of psychological decluttering. Because kindness spring-cleans the soul. And maybe makes this nervous planet a little less nervous.
It is an ongoing thing. I try to be okay with myself. To not feel like I have to work or spend or exercise my way into accepting myself. That I don’t need to be tough and invulnerable to be a man. That I don’t have to worry about what other people think of me. And even when I feel weak, even when I get all those unwanted thoughts and fears, all that mind spam, I try to stay calm. I try not to even try. I try just to accept the way I am. I accept what I feel. And then I can understand it, and change the way I interact with the world.
The world is inside you
YOU MAY BE a part of the planet. But, equally, the planet is part of you. And you can choose how you respond to it. You can change the parts that get in. Yes, in one sense, it is easy to see that the planet is exhibiting symptoms similar to an individual with an anxiety disorder, but there is no one version of the world. There are seven billion versions of the world. The aim is to find the one that suits you best.
And remember.
Everything special about humans – our capacity for love and art and friendship and stories and all the rest – is not a product of modern life, it is a product of being a human. And so, while we can’t disentangle ourselves from the transient and frantic stress of modern life, we can place an ear next to our human self (or soul, if you’d rather) and listen to the quiet stillness of being. And realise that we don’t need to distract ourselves from ourselves.
Everything we need is right here. Everything we are is enough. We don’t need the bigger boat to deal with the invisible sharks around us. We are the bigger boat. The brain, as Emily Dickinson put it, is bigger than the sky. And by noticing how modern life makes us feel, by allowing that reality and by being broad-minded enough to change when change is healthy, we can engage with this beautiful world without being worried it will steal who we are.
Beginning
I LOOK AT the clock on my computer.
I do this now to keep track of how long I spend staring at a screen. Simply knowing the amount makes you spend less time at a computer. I suppose that’s the key: being aware.
Another awareness. I am aware of the dog, now, beside my feet.
And I am also aware of the view.
The sun is shining outside my window. I can see the sea in the distance. An offshore wind farm on the horizon, little lines of hope. A criss-cross of telegraph wires slicing the scene like lines in an abstract painting. Rooftops and chimneys pointing towards the sky we rarely observe.
I stare at the sea, and it calms me. And I am trying to be in tune with what it is about this world that makes us feel good. This is how we can live in the present. This is how every single moment becomes a beginning. By being aware. By stripping away the stuff we don’t need and finding what our self really requires. And from that awareness we can find a way to keep hold of ourselves and still stay in love with this world. That’s the idea. It’s hard. It’s so bloody hard. But also, it is better than despair. And so long as you make sure it isn’t something else you can fail at, once you accept your messy flaws and failures as natural, then it becomes a lot easier.
Later today I will be going to a shopping centre. I don’t enjoy shopping centres, but I no longer have panic attacks in them. The key to surviving shopping centres and supermarkets and negative online comments or anything else is not to ignore them, or to run from them, or to fight them, but to allow them to be. Accept you don’t have any control over them, only over yourself.
‘For after all,’ wrote the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ‘the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.’ Yes. Let it rain. Let the planet be. You have no choice. But also, be aware of your feelings, good and bad. Know what works for you and accept what doesn’t. When you know the rain is rain, and not the end of the world, it makes things easier.
But, right now, it isn’t raining.
And so, the second after finishing this page, I am going to save this document and close the laptop and head outside.
Into air and sunlight.
Into life.
People I’d like to thank
I WOULD LIKE to thank all the people I have met in real life or online over the last few years who have found the courage to talk about their mental health. The more we talk, the more we encourage others to do the same.
Although books have, ridiculously, only one name on the front they are typically a team effort, and this one more than most. Firstly, I owe infinite and ongoing gratitude to my great, warm, fearless and tireless agent Clare Conville, and everyone who works with her at C+W and Curtis Brown.
I must thank my wonderful and long-suffering editor Francis Bickmore at Canongate, and all the other clever people who read early versions including my brilliant editors across the ocean – my US editor Patrick Nolan at Penguin Random House, and Kate Cassaday at HarperCollins Canada. Also, this book would not be this book without the sharp eyes of Alison Rae, Megan Reid, Leila Cruickshank, Jo Dingley, Lorraine McCann, Jenny Fry and Canongate head honcho Jamie Byng. Thanks also to Pete Adlington for his sumptuous work on the cover and all the team at Canongate who have worked so hard on this book and my others, including Andrea Joyce, Caroline Clarke, Jess Neale, Neal Price, Alice Shortland, Lucy Zhou and Vicki Watson.
Thanks to all the social media friends who have allowed me to quote them in this book.
Of course, thanks to Andrea, for being this book’s first and most honest reader and for being someone who makes life on this nervous planet less nerve-racking. And apologies to Pearl and Lucas for this book ironically causing me to spend more time staring at a laptop than usual.
And thanks to you for choosing this book out of the
near-infinity of books out there. It means a lot.