Health, Wealth And Happiness For TMI Tuesday

For the first TMI Tuesday of 2022 the questions focus on health, wealth and happiness. Two of these regularly make it into my thoughts and the other. Well… let’s just say I was fascinated by the question so thought I’d stop on by and share my thoughts in my first Q&A session of the year.

1. Do you feel that happiness is luck or is it a practiced mindset?

I don’t necessarily think it is either. I never planned to struggle with depression for many years. Nor did I decide that I was going to be happy and practise it. But I do think that I’d been taking steps to curate a life that includes great happiness, when my mental health improved to the point I was ready to acknowledge and receive it, the wealth of joy felt, at times, overwhelming. I don’t however, believe happiness is a goal. Being able to feel all of my emotions, and live authentically on the roller coaster that is life, that is where I feel most content. Happiness as a permanent state would feel, for me, contrived, fake.

2. If you could transport to the happiest place in the world where would you be?

Have you ever heard of the World Happiness report? It uses a range of metrics including health and wealth to measure the happiness of nations. The 2021 report has Finland in top spot, followed by Denmark in second. The latter is high up on my list of places to visit with my boys. The rest of the top 7 are all Europe, and while I want to travel everywhere, none of these match to my stereotype of happy! There is a country which received a special mention, because it wasn’t assessed within the time-frame. Now Bhutan is a country that I associate with hardships, yes. But also bright colours, innocence and joy. Much like my rollercoaster. Plus, if I’m going to be transported anywhere (free of charge) I’m going to go for the furthest away option on the happy list!

3. In 2022, what will you do to improve your health?

This Saturday I was due to be running 43 miles along the Thames and into Little Venice. 6 weeks ago I caught covid. This week I am just starting to feel like I make sense again. My thinking is becoming less laboured. However, physically I am stuffed. I’ve gone from enjoying a full and active training week to, quite literally, blowing out my backside when I walk slowly up my stairs. Twitter tells me I’m far from alone with my commitment to joining in with Move, by Yoga With Adriene. While I’ve been finding my current levels of fitness amusing I wish to begin the road to health gently, practise kindness and rein in my expectations.

I know my health will improve, my body is on its road to recovery, I just have to practise patience. Fortunately Sir has demonstrated this well with me, and I’m in a better position than I could be because I know that my body is wrecked. I do find myself wondering if the goal race of 2022 will still be a GO, or if that will need postponing, but babysteps will get me there, even if I do have to wait until 2023 to jump back in. Who knows, maybe by then I’ll be ready to skip forward a few years and do the 100miler instead!

4. What is your money psychology?

• A. Money worshipper: Those who associate money with security, but in a kind of arbitrary way. The danger is no amount of money is ever enough.
• B. Money avoidance: When you tend to think of money as bad, corrupting or just something you do not deserve. This can manifest in many ways, such as, not trying to negotiate a raise at work or avoiding looking at your retirement account.
• C. Money vigilance: These people seem really great with their money, but there is a lot of anxiety around actually using it. This type can be great savers but rarely treat themselves
• D. Money status: People with this mind-set see money as a way to feel good about themselves and appear a certain way to others. These folks tend to run up credit card debt, pick up tabs they cannot afford and otherwise mismanage their money — while judging others who do not have the same status symbols.

I mentioned at the start of the post that one question fascinated me. That was this one!

Money isn’t really something that features for me. I have enough to live on now, so am not constantly worried about making ends meet. But have no worries about keeping up with the Jones’s. None of the answers made sense for me, and so I wanted to dig a little deeper. I turned to google and found a quiz. You know, one of those quizzes with multiple choice questions where the answers all make you curl your lip?

It turns out I’m an idealist. Actually, that does figure for me. I’m fully aware that money is needed to make the world go around, but don’t get too stressed out about it. I value time and connection over money, and prefer to just live my best life with my best people. While my mental health, happiness and relative wealth have all improved, that isn’t to say I don’t enjoy the challenge of living frugally, and taking all of the things I’ve learnt from my time in a financially controlled marriage to mean I can have a little left over for rainy days.

Bonus: Do you have any goals for your blog in 2022?

Going into last year I had a huge list of goals for my blog, and writing in general. It wasn’t just a long list, they were big tasks too. Needless to say I couldn’t achieve them all… I have, however, made huge progress.

My Domain Authority has increased from low single numbers to 20+. This is an ongoing task, I wished to have it all done by the end of 2021 but doing to much at once makes google sad and cross so I have slowed down. Considerably! It will be done when it’s done. By which time I’ll be starting again!

I had planned to get the first draft of my book completed too. And while I’ve probably written the right number of words I have also deleted them. I’m not sure why I’m struggling so hard with it, though I think it is fear. Fear of it not being good enough, or fear of it being a success- whatever that may mean. I couldn’t tell you the answer. All I know is anxiety is paralysing when it comes to reading back my words. However, I have a new goal in mind, to take babysteps, creeping up on the full manuscript.

I will be working towards this smaller outcome while I continue with the blog.

Which can only mean I have a plan for this site. I want to post less. I mean, less is more, right? But I know that you enjoy my posts as much as I enjoy writing them so, following on from my top ten lists post here is what I hope to achieve this year:

• I have a monthly interview series in production, small kink-related businesses that have touched my world and that I wish to share with you all.
• February Photo Fest, again.
• Regular Scavenger Hunt posts.
• Continuing with the story behind the blog, more of my deviant memories.
• Participating in memes. Not just sharing for them, but making more time to read everyone else’s posts. There are so many wonderful memes, and even more amazing bloggers. I’m sad that life overtook me this year and I didn’t comment as much as I would have liked. (Lurking is ok but much more fun to join in the conversation!)

This is the list I have, and the list I am going to hold myself accountable for. I look forward to reviewing my progress at regular intervals.

 

Health, Wealth and Happiness for TMI Tuesday is my first offering for the meme in 2022. My first TMI Tuesday for 2021 was an interesting post for me to look back on, a really fun memory made the header particularly joyful.