Your top three happiness habits?

Mark 19 Comments

I bet something to do with nature is one of them – it is for many people (including me).

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19 Replies to “Your top three happiness habits?”

  1. Skipping through a meadow or downland full of wildflowers; sharing nature watching with good friends; used to be (don’t do it now) driving back fro the meadows with a truck full of freshly harvested seed knowing I was playing an important part in restoring flower rich grassland to a flower- impoverished countryside

  2. Ah. I may be moving into the misanthropic years. Happiness doesn’t generally involve people.

    1. Seeing wild creatures, in the wild, being wild.
    2. Walking the landscape, especially ‘my’ local beach and bits of the Devon Coastal Path.
    3. Daily meditative practice.

    1. Wildlife, can be celebrated for the way it engages with people. This is especially true of the natural soundscape which belongs to all of us and runs deep in our collective psyche; we start learning language before we are born.
      Small wonder that the sounds of birds are a fundamental contributor to wellbeing. Even strangers will stop and comment. Then it’s not unusual for a conversation to lead to other subjects. Creeping misanthropy? No, it’s gone in that moment of talking and listening.

  3. 1 – Watching birds – anywhere – especially out on the tops …….. I’m lucky enough to see kites almost on a daily basis , but appreciate the little ones too ……. watching a wren in my drystone wall doing her housekeeping is delightful.
    2 – Walking – on my own – having space and time to breathe and appreciate my surroundings. I live in a small community but can reach the desolate valleys and moors around here in a five minute car journey …….any negativity soon disappears ..
    3 – Walking with my dog, seeing the world through her eyes – noticing things that you wouldn’t normally stop and look at whilst she’s pottering ……. enjoying her enthusiasm for life when you really could do with mug of coffee …..

  5. 1. Counting, throughout the year, within a fixed time frame, the number of songs and calls from all the common birds occurring on a regular dog walked transect here in Sussex.

    2. Watching the dog as she sleeps.

    3. Listening to atheists.

  6. Out in the wilds watching wildlife, usually but not always birds,with camera!
    Sharing above with friends of like mind
    Relaxing with those one loves.

  7. 1. Watching SE owls and our visiting Hen Harriers whilst walking with my dog on our wonderful salt marsh coast. (What??? A dog owning birdwatcher!!! Whatever next!)
    2. I hate litter, I hate litterers even more, but it’s strangely satisfying looking back at a cleared verge or hedgerow. And I’m sure our wildlife appreciates it.
    3. Walking with good friends in our lovely countryside. (Hunting bins hanging round my neck) And yes, the dog comes too…..what a bad person. Shhh, don’t tell Bo Bolens!

  8. Bleuch!!!!!

    This all reminds me of a quote from Bill Oddie’s Little Black Bird Book..

    “Put the following in order of importance:
    1. Food
    2. World Peace
    3. A Lanceolated Warbler”

  9. Britain’s landscapes and their patchwork of habitats shrouding the rocks and soil and all the variation this throws up as you travel, and with the unfolding of the year.

    The wonder of everything that can be still be found in all of this from the mountain tops to beyond the spring tide low water mark, from the scale of the Wash and its teeming birdlife (and what’s in the mud) to the dependents of a single ancient oak; the sights, scents and sounds.

    The serendipitous discovery of something you hadn’t seen before, a lichen on the wall, a new woodpecker hole beginning, the behaviour of a potter wasp.

    But for so much of what brings me joy to have been lost over the last half century, when there were so many better options, the utter failure to learn from past mistakes; and the prospects for the next 50 years rather takes the shine off.

    The curlew’s call. The sound of a summer meadow. Honeysuckle scent on a still, summer eve. And sharing these.

    1. Brief yet nicely abstruse. Alas, I’m a few bricks short of a load in gaining a deeper understanding of this list. Grice? To do with swine? Bitty, a dialect word?
      One-upmanship. Yes. Always entertaining to observe, be it close up or at a distance.

      1. Grice as in an artrock musician.
        Bitty as in Little Britain.
        One-upmanship as in a sad basket.

  12. “Strangling animals, golf and masturbating” as Harry Bagot would say.
    Or as I would say…watching migrating birds, playing the guitar and trying to get people to think outside the box.

    1. And golf is the most outrageous of the Bagot three. At least the other two can be done in private.

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