Part 2. How Rhythm Relates To Happiness.

This is the second installment in this series on happiness. If you are coming to it late, the first post can be viewed here: https://www.bebee.com/producer/@jim-murray/the-dogged-relentless-pursuit-of-happiness-pt-1

“The first lesson I learned in life is that no matter what you do in life, you have to figure out your own internal rhythms.”

Hillary Clinton

All objects and creatures have something that is known as a natural vibrating frequency. For human beings like us this is more commonly known as rhythm.

In my experience, finding and doing what you have to do to keep your rhythm rhythmic is one of the not-so-often thought of keys to happiness.

As a professional creative person, which is what I have been all my adult life, I learned my lesson about rhythm the way we all learn most important things…the hard way and through trial and error.

A Bit About My Own Rhythm

In my case I learned very early in in my advertising career that my best times for writing and thinking were in the morning and late in the evening. This was a pattern I developed before I got into writing professional and had a job in retail management.

Fortunately for me, this pattern actually fit rather nicely into my advertising life and became a key part of how I organized my time between doing the actual work that needed to be done and all the meetings involved in getting that work turned into advertising and unleashed on the world.

My work day would start around 7 am at home, where I would write scripts or ads or whatever till about 11:00 then go into the office and meet with all the people I had to meet with to get them on board, then go out to the clients and sell stuff, then come back at the end of the day and talk to my art director about what he had done with all the stuff a brought him in the morning, and then go home to hang out with my family till about 10 PM, then write my own stuff until about 1:00 AM sleep.

I knew this rhythm was good for me, because when I got out of it, it really screwed me up mentally and if it went on for too long it would screw with my sleep patterns as well.

But fortunately, especially after I got to be an ‘executive’, I was able to exert a lot of control over my time and pretty much maintain my rhythm.

This got even easier to do when I left the agency business and went on my own.

Rhythm Finds You…Not The Other Way Round (IMHO)

The rhythm of your life is not something you create, it really is something that kind of finds you and brings you along for the ride.

But what it really does is provide you with the comfort of knowing that you are always, more or less, in control of your existence. And that comfort, believe it or not, is a very potent source of happiness…because when you are in your rhythm, you are more productive and satisfied with yourself ergo, happy.

Not everyone has the ability to control their rhythm, because the majority of people do jobs that require their presence at a certain place for a certain period of time. And I believe that the high levels of unhappiness that people feel about their jobs don’t necessarily come from the work itself, but from the discomfort they feel from being out sync with whatever their natural rhythm is.

On the other hand, for some people, maybe even many, this is not a source of discomfort, because their schedules actually do sync up with their natural rhythm.

In today’s world with the amazing amount of contract work and outsourcing that many businesses are doing, and with the high number of startups, especially in the technology world, it can be much easier for people, to find that rhythm and maybe even hold onto a number of years.

Now everything I have just said, if course, is based on my own experience and some conversations I have had with a few people, mostly in my business. So there is obviously a very narrow application width. And I have never really claimed that these are anything remotely resembling generalizations.

However, if you are one of those people whose main office is in between your ears, a lot of this would apply. And in today’s world, that’s probably a hell of a lot more people that it was even a decade ago.

Happiness Kicker #2

“One can ascend to a higher development only by bringing rhythm and repetition into one's life. Rhythm holds sway in all nature.”

Rudolf Steiner

Finding and holding onto, as much as possible, to your own natural rhythm will contribute significantly to your happiness, whether you know it or not.

Till next time.

He has published more than 1100 long format posts over the past 20 years, and never seems to get tired of writing new ones.

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