by Meik Wiking
This exercise might also work as a gratitude journal—something we often see the effect of in happiness research. Studies also show that it is better to do this occasionally and not necessarily every day, to keep it from becoming a routine.
MAY:
MAKE PLANS FOR MEMORABLE MOMENTS
Remember to plan for memorable experiences. What dreams do you have for next year? What in your future do you want to look back at and smile? Now might be the right time to start planning and making it happen.
One of the dreams I have for 2020 is to gather a group of fellow writers for a writers’ retreat. I am talking renting a big-ass villa in Italy. We will write during the day, go for hikes in the afternoon and have dinners at a long table in the evenings. Oh, and there will be wine.
That is something I would love to make happen. “Whatever can happen will happen” is sometimes known as Murphy’s Law and, while it might be a good strategy for risk management, it is a lousy strategy for dream management.
So use May to turn “maybe” into “will be.” Break down your dream for next year into steps and get cracking on the first one towards making it happen. For my dream, the first step was to find a suitable villa that was available for rent, and I’ve found one on a hill close to Poppiano, about an hour from Florence. It is an old stone house with tiles on the floors and wooden beams in the ceiling and has a huge stone fireplace. The garden has a wide selection of herbs and, if you walk up the hill, there is a 360-degree view of the lake, the surrounding valleys and the nearby towns and villages, which have open-air markets at the weekends. I think it sounds like the perfect place for making memories.
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Meik Wiking
JUNE:
WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE
Remember how being somewhere we experienced happy times helps us to remember them—and how I asked my dad to organize a memory-lane tour of Aarhus? June is the perfect time for walks, so take your family or friends on a memory tour, or ask them to take you somewhere that means a lot to them.
On another occasion my dad and I visited the Old Town in Aarhus, an open-air town museum with seventy-five buildings you can enter and walk around in. Most of the buildings are from the mid-eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries—a tailor’s, a blacksmith’s, a brewery, and so on. The museum is populated by actors in period dress.
A small part of the Old Town is dedicated to the seventies and eighties. You can walk into apartments that look how I remember them looking back then—a grocery store with products from the eighties and a TV shop with records, tape recorders and deep-pan TVs. I instantly recognized the TV we had in our home and suddenly remembered how my dad and I used to watch Westerns in German.
I grew up close to the German border and, at the time, there was only one Danish TV channel so we would often watch German TV. My dad, who is half German, would translate. Walking into that TV store helped me understand why, until I was ten, I thought Clint Eastwood was German.
As a side note, the Old Town organizes “Memory Communication” tours for elderly people who are living with dementia. The museum has created an apartment furnished like a middle-class home from the fifties, where the surroundings may trigger memories for the guests.
JULY:
LAUNCH THE APOLLO PICNIC
First steps, first taste—first everything is always memorable.
Have you ever tried kimchi? It is spicy fermented cabbage, and it is delicious. It’s hugely popular in South Korea, so much so that they say “Kimchi” instead of “Cheese” for photographs. Or how about a small piece of habanero chili? Or buckthorn juice?
July is the perfect time of year for a picnic. The weather is warm and the evenings are long, so invite your friends or family for a picnic. Make it a pot-luck event so everybody brings a dish to share—but the kicker is that everybody brings something they have never tasted before.
Call it the Apollo picnic and do it around July 20—the day of the moon landing in 1969. That way, you create an association trigger. By daring to do something new and testing your boundaries, you are also using the emotional highlighter pen. Also, the next time you see or taste the ingredients, a happy memory of a fun picnic will hopefully come to mind.
One small bite for man—one giant leap for memorable moments.
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Doug Lemke/Shutterstock
AUGUST:
TIME TO MIX UP THE ROUTINE
It’s back-to-school or back-to-work month for people in Denmark (you may want to switch the month so it fits the cycle of the year where you live). This is the perfect time to mix things up and experiment with alternatives to your routine and the daily grind. Perhaps there is an alternative route to work or an alternative take-away place on your way home.
If you switch away from your default mode, you may slow down the pace of time a little—and perhaps you will discover that some of the alternative options are more enjoyable and turn them into your new routine.
SEPTEMBER:
FIND A PEAK WORTH THE CLIMB
We remember the times we struggled. Almost twenty years ago I spent four days in Sweden hiking with my girlfriend and two friends. We brought a kilo of rice, a kilo of onions and some chili sauce with us. We weren’t inexperienced, we were just plain stupid. We were going to “live off the land.” In addition, we brought one guitar, one saxophone and a moose hat—you know, the essential survival gear. To cut a long story short, we spent four days fantasizing about cake. Oh, and Mikkel’s boot caught fire at one point. However, it did prove quite a memorable experience.
In the coming year, I plan to organize another hike, this time around the island of Bornholm. The 120km coastal trail is dotted with tiny villages, caves, castle ruins, waterfalls, smokehouses, Viking rune carvings, nature reserves, granite rocks and long white beaches.
September is the perfect time. It is off season but, as Bornholm is made of rock, the rock and the sea keep the island warm. There is also an abundance of figs, berries and mushrooms at this time of year, and flounders are still in season. So we might be stupid enough to add an additional challenge to the 120km hike and live off the land. Moose hat optional. So consider what your September struggle could be. Which peak would be worth the climb?
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OCTOBER:
WAR OF THE WORLDS
Bring friends, or your kids—if they are old enough—to a clay-shooting range. For many people, this will not only be a novel experience but, because guns by default are dangerous, you are also using the emotional highlighter pen. (Of course, you should put safety first.) Furthermore, guns are loud. Gunpowder smells. And the view of a flying disc that suddenly shatters midair is rather exciting.
There will be extra points if you add a storytelling component. If you have kids—or gullible grown-ups—you might, for example, conjure up a story in which Earth is being attacked by Martians and that you need to take out the flying saucers before they land. As a warm-up, you could listen to the 1938 radio classic H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds read by Orson Welles. Every ten years, there will be mention and discussion of the anniversary of the time when “the broadcast terrified the nation.” The following weekend you might watch the movie starring Tom Cruise and use it as a trigger to the memory to stay ahead of the forgetting curve.
NOVEMBER:
MAKE A LIST OF NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY
Remember: studies show that we are better at remembering the novel and the new. Novelty helps durability when it comes to memory, so use November to harness the power of firsts. Novel November.
Make a list of new things you want to try out. You may want to visit a place you have never been to before, pursue a new hobby or learn a new skill. If you are able to acquire new skills, it gives you a sense of accomplishment and boosts your self-confidence—both have positive effects on your level of well-being. If you need ideas, you can get inspiration from the
Action for Happiness “New Things November” calendar.
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Maria Evseyeva/Shutterstock
DECEMBER:
CURATE THE HAPPY HUNDRED
The days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve are a good time to go over the digital photos you, and possibly your family, took this year. Share what you all thought were the happiest moments and select which hundred photos should be printed out.
It’s similar to when you write down your ideas for a book or a business. Good ideas go on to your MacBook. Great ideas go into your Moleskine notebook. Special ideas get a special place—and your most special photos should get special treatment, too. So take active steps to preserve your photos and to protect yourself and your family from digital amnesia. Bring your photos out of the digital universe and into real print.
The act of being proactive in preserving your digital photos to make them last for decades and for the next generation might well be one more happy memory.
Meik Wiking
A RETURN TO ATLANTIS
Luis Buñuel, the Spanish surrealist filmmaker, once wrote that our memory is our coherence; it’s experiencing being the same person over time. So, in the process of writing this book, I ventured back to my hometown to uncover happy memories, to connect with my past and to connect with the former self with whom I share a name.
Haderslev is a small town at the bottom of a fjord in the southern part of Denmark, about 50 kilometers from the German–Danish border. Some houses date back to the sixteenth century, and on one of the squares a couple of the old timbered houses lean up against each other like a loving old married couple.
I return to Haderslev one day in spring. It is election season and on the main street the Social Democratic Party is handing out fliers and free sausages and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” is playing on repeat.
I retrace my steps around town. The library where I would borrow piles of books as a kid. The cinema where I worked nights when I was in high school. The town square where Mikkel and I sang Frank Sinatra songs while Mikkel held a hard-boiled egg, for some reason. I visit the butcher’s, the cheese store, the bookstore in search of memories. In the bookstore, there is a familiar scent that reminds me of something. Hoping for a madeleine moment, I try hard to make the memory resurface but I am unable to recover it.
I visit the house I grew up in. It is on the outskirts of town, on a hill overlooking the fjord. It is a yellow brick house with a flat black roof, which I often used to climb up on, much to my mother’s displeasure.
There is an inner courtyard with a Japanese cherry tree and, once in a while, pheasants would roam on the steep slope behind the house.
The new owners are lovely people. Steen is a law professor and Lene teaches the local boys’ choir. We spend a lovely sunny afternoon drinking coffee and talking about the house and about memories.
The pheasants are gone. The Japanese cherry tree is still there—but not in the place where I remember it. My old room is now a library.
To be completely honest, this is my childhood home and my ego is a little bit hurt that it hasn’t been turned into a museum yet. You can hardly walk past a building in Copenhagen without seeing a plaque stating that Hans Christian Andersen lived there, had coffee there or knew a guy who knew a guy who lived in the building. Nevertheless, I did refrain from giving the current owners a “Meik Wiking lived here” plaque to put outside their house.
Back in town, I browse in a vintage shop and buy a Kodak camera from the forties. I walk down the main street, turn my head to the left, see a shop in a small alley and step directly and instantly into a memory.
When I was sixteen I took a photo of a sunrise by Uluru in Australia. For some reason, I thought it was such a great picture that I asked a shop which sold posters back in Haderslev whether they wanted to sell it. That shop was located in the small alley I was now standing in. The memory led to another one: a conversation I overheard between my mother and a friend. “Do you really think he will be able to sell the photograph?” he asked. “Yes, I do,” she answered.
I wasn’t able to sell the photograph. But more than two decades afterwards, I was able to retrieve a memory of a parent believing in me. And that is worth something.
Paul Brown/Alamy Stock Photo
Alexander Kpke/EyeEm/Getty Images
This year, I went to China for the first time. To Russia for the first time. But it was also the first time I had ventured so far into the past. We are all travelers—and we are all travelers in time, exploring the past and dreaming about a happier future.
Part of this quest was prompted by turning forty, by passing the halfway-there milestone to my date of expiration (statistically speaking). This journey backwards has allowed me to consider my journey forwards. The first half is gone. What should I do with the second half?
Seneca once wrote, “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” I think one of the courses in the school of life is about our time. What do we choose to do with it? Which of our past experiences have brought us the most happiness? I believe that looking back—revisiting our happy places and our happy times—enables us to plan for a better journey ahead. Plan for future happy memories. Plan for happier days. Plan for a happier future.
And remember: one day, your life will flash before your eyes—make sure it is worth watching. I hope it includes raw porridge on a windy beach.
Tamas Gabor/EyeEm/Getty Images
Thanks
I would like to thank the people who helped create the following memories. Thank you for the underground tunnels and tree-top fortresses. For the snowball fights and skating Friday nights. For the smell of grass at Solbæk and for opening another bottle of red wine at Christmas. For Irish coffee on the deck and skateboarding down the street. For the extreme survival trip in Skåne and for chicken roasting over an open fire under the stars. For riding the jeep on Fejø and for the duels on the tennis court. For firm bottoms, sparkling minds and looking for the beauty in the world. For Pastis and Pétanque and for the applying happiness research in the water park. For hiking up Mount Fuji and skiing down the slopes. For the trips to Kelstrup, the blue mohawks and for the gu-gu-gu-gu. For letting me into the Hallowe’en party even though I was dressed as a smølf. For too much rock ’n’ roll for one hand, the battle of Kronborg Castle and making sure Ban Ki-moon’s water glass is filled 4/5ths. For midnight orange cannons and for listening to ‘In the Air Tonight’ across the Australian outback. For opening the restaurant after hours and for a piece of paradise too beautiful not to share. For horse races, after-work swims and for a flawless version of ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’. For the hockey matches, the movie nights and the birthday in Paris. For countless coffees and endless conversation and for the sausage disaster of 2015. For dancing to ‘My Sharona’ and for Beethoven-infused boardgames. For expanding the Oxford Dictionary and taking hygge around the world. For the Salt Lake Shamanism and fighting with me to make the world a happier place. For strong coffee and soft kisses on Sunday mornings.
About the Author
MEIK WIKING has been described by The Times as the happiest man in the world. He founded the world’s first Happiness Research Institute in 2013, in Copenhagen, Denmark. In addition, he is research associate for The World Database of Happiness and part of the advisory group to the Global Happiness Policy Report.
He consults cities, governments and companies around the world on happiness and how to convert wealth into well-being. He has been a keynote speaker in more than forty different countries.
He holds a degree in business and political science and previously worked for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When he’s not writing books (including the internationally bestselling The Little Book of Hygge and The Little Book of Lykke) and reports on happiness, well-being and quality of life, he enjoys photography and playing tennis (quite badly).
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Copyright
THE ART OF MAKING MEMORIES. Copyright © 2019 by Meik Wiking. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Penguin Random House UK.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-294339-2
Version 08212019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-294338-5
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