‘If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands’, as the children’s song says. With the UK government suggesting they want somehow to ‘measure’ happiness, I’ve been giving some thought to happiness.
So many of our friends, on Facebook and in emails, want to check with us that we’re happy, since we emigrated here 8 months ago. We are contented, well and relaxed, which, in my book, is a good summary of being happy.
When you first give up your salary and move into retirement, it can be a jolt. Most of us retire in our fifties and sixties when we are at our maximum earning potential. Since my previous blog entry on the joys of early retirement, there was a discussion in the comments section about how much you need to live on when retired. I found this a hard one to answer. Being typically British and brought up not to discuss money so openly, I found it hard when some correspondents asked if £10,000 per annum would be enough, assuming no mortgage. My reply, that you can never be too thin or too rich (as Wallis Simpson said) was a definite side-step from the question. If you earn a large salary or survive on the state minimum, you still pay for many of the same things. We all have to pay for our home (rent or mortgage) and buy electricity, water, fuel and food but after that you make choices. We have always insured everything – including the cat – but then we have been able to afford to do that and I’m aware that many people don’t take out insurances. Look at the number of people who suffer when floods or disasters strike because they’re not insured. I would bet that, during the last few years of financial strain, more and more people would consider insurance a luxury rather than a necessity.
When we were working, much of our salary went on keeping us at work. We had to dress for work, run a car, pay for holidays and live a certain lifestyle in order to ‘maintain’ our work lives. I thought nothing of consoling myself with a retail therapy trip if I’d had a bad day at work and could quite easily convince myself we deserved another takeaway as we worked hard and had precious little leisure time. I also paid someone else to clean the house and had an ironing service every week. All of this, we assured ourselves, was because we were ‘cash rich and time poor’. In fact I used that useful little mantra for all sorts of excesses! We needed holidays because we worked so hard and needed to recharge the batteries. We had a few wild excesses and could easily spend £40 or more in one trip to the bookstore! I’m sure we also contributed to the profits of Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Café Nero on a regular basis. A trip to the cinema wasn’t complete without a wheelie-bin sized box of popcorn and large fizzy drinks, costing over £20. But, we assured each other, we don’t drink much or smoke or gamble – and we work hard.
Now that we don’t have the pressure of two demanding careers, what is important and what makes us happy? To go back to my original statement, we are contented, well and relaxed. We left the UK after having successful careers which gave us personal satisfaction and made an impact on others. Teaching has its downsides but it constantly allows you to see where you have made a difference. I was also lucky to work in a large organisation where, as a manager, I could directly impact on the progress of colleagues, either by supporting or promoting them but also by believing in them until they started believing in themselves. This type of happiness is achieved when you get your own happiness by watching the happiness of others. Parenting brings the same rewards. You see what a good job you’ve done in bringing up children, especially when they go on to have children of their own or have career successes themselves.
I think these are the things that add to the feeling of contentment. We also realised a dream – to live in a warm climate. I feel contented that we had such a dream and worked towards it. I cannot believe how much impact this wonderful climate has on me on a daily basis. I am also much more attuned to nature now I have time to enjoy it. We live overlooking the sea, with cliffs to one side and mountains behind. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t look out to sea and marvel at the colours of the water. I watch the clouds move across the sky and watch the sea change. I sit out at night and watch stars in an inky sky. We watched the total eclipse in all its glory. We also spent an amusing but unfruitful hour racing around trying to see the International Space Station as it passed over Lanzarote! I don’t think I realised how much the beauty of the night sky in the UK is lost in light pollution. (We’re lucky if our few temperamental street lights are on every night and often they’re on during the day and go off before the onset of darkness!) I watch the swifts circling overhead and listen to the gulls having silly laughing conversations with each other. We even had a kestrel land on our balcony and, a few weeks back, sat in a bar and watched dolphins playing in the waves.
So we both feel contentment and are both in so much better health since moving here. I’ve commented before about the weight loss we’ve both enjoyed but I know the healthy diet (which is nearly all grown locally without a cocktail of chemicals) has made us look and feel better. Even the beautiful Nancy has a coat that’s in its best ever condition. She still sheds as much fur as ever but she’s as glossy and groomed as a pedigree cat!
I was so stressed before we moved, with all the pressures of a very poorly husband, leaving my job, crating up the house and shipping out here that I had high blood pressure and chest pains. My ‘sleep hygiene’ (that’s what doctors call it and I love the expression) was poor. I regularly worried about seemingly insurmountable work problems to the extent that it affected my sleep, leaving me knackered, unhappy and up watching awful TV at 3 in the morning. I was angry at not being able to sleep and so the vicious circle continued. We often used the weekends to catch up on the sleep we lost during the week. If we had a precious 2 week holiday, I could count on the first 4 days being lost as we both slept off the stress we’d accumulated. Now that I can sleep when I want to, I have become an expert at it! Losing the stress of work means my sleep is so much improved. I have even managed the art of the siesta!
I would say that learning to relax is another skill. I have finally untied the web of knots in my neck and shoulders. I don’t beat myself up about doing things on time or to a certain deadline. Last week, I opened a book and started reading it and became so engrossed that I did nothing else for the entire day until I had finished it. I used to read like this on holiday but never had the chance to do it in our normal lifestyle when we were at work. It was always a good barometer for me of my husband Robin’s stress levels. If I saw him deep in a book, I knew he was relaxed – but it was a rare event. Now I can’t keep up with him as he devours books daily and we make regular trips to book swaps and stores.
So my answer is yes, I can clap my hands. I am happy and I know it. I know we are ‘living the dream’ - even if using that expression makes me sound more like Chantelle Houghton than I would like! Retirement and emigration are both scary at times and you wonder how you’ll cope. People asked about missing the family but we spend more time with them when they come to stay here than we ever did. We have significantly less money than we had when we were working. Of course we do. But we have a lot more than many other people. We have to watch our cents here but we always had to watch the pennies in the UK. Unless you’re the Euro Millions winners, who doesn’t?
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