The Happy Living Shop: great idea's for living a happy joyfull life!

I’ve alway been keen on communication. My mom often says she needed earplugs once I started talking as I just wouldn’t stop. Throughout the years I’ve kept up this talkative reputation and only in the last decade I’ve mellowed down a bit. Trying to think once in while before blurting things out. Pacing myself. Not adhering to this label I was given so young, but just being myself.

In the same 10 years the phenomena social networking has come to maturity. Starting with simple ICQ and IRC chatting via MSN Messenger to now blogs, Twitter and Facebook. I use them all to varying degrees depending on my mood. And it seems I’m not alone, seeing this social media evolution video! Wow!

Sortly after seeing this vid, a colleague emailed me this short story from 1909 by E.M. Foster called The Machine Stops. It reminds me of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. It’s awesome and couldn’t stop reading it. A brilliant work, that left me with many questions. In the story humans have become so involved in social media and opinion that there is little time for anything else. Living has changed completely… or not so completely perhaps. We are halfway there. How many of us live on automatic pilot. Getting up in the morning, going to work, do our job, chat/socialise online all day, come home, eat a microwave meal, watch telly or socialise online some more, sleep -> repeat.

Although I don’t think we’ll ever reach the stage of ‘The Machine Stops’ it is food for thought. The reason I think we won’t go that far, is that for every action there seems to be a reaction. I see it here in the UK. On first arriving 3.5 years ago, I was shocked by the consumerism. If you didn’t buy (and often buy beyond your means) you just didn’t fit in. It was hip to let money roll, even if it was not yours. This thinking is the basis of today’s so called ‘economic crisis’ in the UK. Not the top men at banks / in government. All countries deal with corruption and greed like that. No the basis of the economic crisis is the unconsious need to spend so you feel you belong. The need for more, without first finding the positive place from where you motivate the need for more. It’s all to fill that unpluggable gap in our souls. Haha getting philisophical here.

Back to reality. As a counter action following this, a lot of people are growing their own, economising and discovering space. You see less stuff, means more space. This also goes for the head. The less you feel the need to aquire stuff, the more space you’ve got to just be. Be yourself. It’s a breath of fresh air for many.

This ‘head’ space give people a chance to meet up and just be themselves. The pressure to be seen to thrive (with bought goods) is lessening and so socially interacting with others has become more safe. The need to only have online friend dimishes and we all go back to living. Anyway that’s the idea for the future. To enjoy our bodies and the lives we are living, sharing experiences with loved ones and friends, instead of always sitting behind the pc and chatting about we will be DOING!

So recap: first we concentrate on just BEING and from there we gain space to start DOING. .