Look, if my future crime novel’s heroine would let anyone bend the rules it would surely be me, her creator. Exactly. I agree. And so, while I haven’t done 65 days yet, I have properly completed some of the tasks, on a one-item-per-day basis; and on one day I planned what I would do on some, though not all, of the remaining special-purpose days.
The results have been startling. This has made me happier than any other part of my investigation. I feel so much better, and am certainly going to carry on with the 65 Days – not because I think it will help me to solve the mystery of happiness, but simply because it’s fun. It turns out that a concrete, thought-provoking list of Actual Stuff To Do is so much more enjoyable and mood-enhancing than endless frustrated musings about what happiness might or might not be. It occurs to me that the 65 Days could be my equivalent of Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project. (Have I just plagiarised the work of my fictional heroine? Probably. She says she’s fine with it, though.)
Here is where I’m up to, anyway (and I swapped the order around a bit too):
I promise that, from now on, in making all future plans, I will not overcommit myself.
I have admitted to myself that for years I have been acting in a way that is not in my long-term best interests: driving myself too hard and risking my physical and emotional health.
I invented two things that don’t exist but, in my opinion, should:
1. Nice, inspiring health warnings that aren’t so much warnings (which are always depressing) as titbits of health inspiration. So, for example, on a packet of cigarettes, instead of photos of blackened limb stumps after amputation or hideous tumours on the insides of mouths, you could have a picture of a pink, healthy lung with the caption, ‘You too can have shell-pink lungs if you give up smoking!’ Frankly, I cannot believe that those in charge of health policy haven’t thought of this already. It’s hardly New Age or controversial to say that our mental health affects our physical health. Yes, smoking might cause cancer, but put it this way: are distressing images of horrendous disfigurement likely to create a state of mind that boosts anyone’s immune system? Show smokers something lovely to aim for, not a terrifying vision of their bleakest possible future.
2. Confusion Laws. Some things are too wrong to be made legally permissible, and at the same time understandable enough that you’d never want to send anyone to prison for doing them. For this specific category of understandable offence, there ought to be something called a Confusion Law: it is absolutely wrong, and a crime in every official sense, but no one is ever punished for doing it.
When I have some free time, I’m going to start testing perfumes regularly. I used to do this a lot when I lived in Manchester and I want to start doing it again. Perfume is one of my favourite things in the world.
I went to the Etsy website to search for something beautiful to buy. After rejecting lots of things because I knew I could live without them, I bought an absolutely beautiful and completely unnecessary bone china jug with a blue octopus painted on it. It was the first thing I saw that was irresistible, and is now sitting on the mantelpiece in the TV room. My evenings are enhanced by seeing it there every day.
This one required me to overcome some of my British reserve. I’m going to Fort Collins, Colorado, early next May to give a keynote speech at a mystery writers’ conference. One of my favourite life-coach podcasters, Tiffany Han, lives in Fort Collins. I emailed her and said, ‘I’m a complete stranger who loves your podcast – I’d love to take you out for lunch or dinner when I’m in Fort Collins and chat about coaching and self-help.’
I will write to my best friend from school, whom I haven’t seen for years.
I finally threw away the manky old bedspread that Brewster, my dog, had chewed to pieces. Doing it still felt like too much effort, but once the thing was out of my house, I felt so much better.
I planned some of the other 65 Days activities that I’m going to do on future ‘special purpose’ days.
I loved this one, as you can imagine. I cancelled three things that were in my diary that I had agreed to because it had seemed easier at the time. Each cancellation felt like a weight being lifted off my heart.
I’m going to spring-clean my house, room by room, and throw away absolutely everything I don’t want or need.
I decided to cut sugar, flour and alcohol out of my diet (with the exception of occasional treats like dim sum, which I could never give up altogether). Why? Because Brooke recommends it, and I’m still feeling disciple-ish towards her, and I needed to lose weight, which I am doing with great success. All my rings are falling off my fingers. (I must admit, this is also partly because I have no time to eat any more.)
I am going to work on accepting that schools do not always treat children kindly or fairly (I feel as if this might take me more than a day to accomplish, and that’s not allowed according to the terms of the 65 Days. I’ll have to get up at 4 a.m. to stand even a tiny chance of succeeding.)
I have redefined what the words ‘a productive day’ mean to me. I used to regard a day as productive only if I did absolutely everything on my to-do list for that day. From now on, a productive day is any day on which I accomplish one good and important thing.
I’m going to give all the books and bound proofs in the house that I no longer want to St Botolph’s Church in Cambridge, where my husband is a member of the choir.
I’m going to notice that whenever I focus only on my own behaviour/thinking, and don’t try to control the behaviour of other people, I feel much more at peace, in a deep and stoical Marcus Aurelius-ish way.
I have named lots of things. I needed a name for the chat forum part of my Dream Author coaching programme, and I have decided to call it the Talking Point. I’ve also named two of my future dogs: Bernie Leadoff and Furbert Lemons. These are the dogs I’m going to get when I work less hard and can bribe my husband with promises to do more dog-related chores instead of leaving them all to him. Some people think Bernie Leadoff is not a good name for a dog you love because it sounds like Bernie Madoff, but: a) that’s the joke – that very thing; b) the similarity of name in no way implies similarity of moral character; and c) a dachshund or wire fox terrier is highly unlikely to mastermind a fraudulent Ponzi scheme.
I will try to forgive the people I love who voted for something I regard as evil in recent elections. (This will be very hard. I expect to encounter a lot of ‘forgiveness resistance’, and I will have to get up even earlier for this one than for Day 13’s task.)
I finished an article I’d promised to write for a collection of essays by crime writers about the craft and practice of crime writing. I had agreed reluctantly to do it, and had secretly planned to let the deadline pass, and then pretend to have accidentally missed it. I decided instead to fulfil the commitment I’d made. So I started it, finished it and emailed it in.
I was asked to write a golden age murder mystery story for a magazine, and once again was induced by my foolish Bertrand-Russell-style zest to say yes. I rescued an idea that I’d used years earlier in an immature and thankfully unpublished short story, and used the very same mystery-and-solution combination as the basis for a far better story.
Is the 65 Days, then, my answer to the mystery of happiness? Is it all I need? If it’s an experiment rather than an answer, how can it be the answer?
There’s something I need to do before I can declare this case closed.