The simple plan for being well-adjusted

One of my favourite phrases is well-adjusted, it says so much and yet is indescribable. My brother is very well-adjusted, by any definition; he is calm, amiable, intelligent, patient, principled yet compromising. Those are all things I am not, and yet we share genes, history and similar nurturing and yet we turned out so different. There have been studies where people are asked to rate their personal happiness; scientists are now trying to understand it empirically. They simply ask you if you are happy and you answer yes or no, then you describe your character. That is when you see an interesting insight, the people who describe themselves as happy share a common personality and similar outlook. Happy people are generally more patient, compromising, principled, have a routine, set goals, listen as much as they talk, give as much as they take, and above all they are optimistic by nature. So, I thought of cause and effect – does being patient make you happy or does being happy make you patient? Then I realized there is no point in questioning that, you have to start the cycle, then keep it spinning, starting now. Many of my friends are young parents and we discuss the formula for creating the perfect well-rounded human being. We talk for endless hours about how we will make our children better people, there are an infinite number of books written on this, and opinion is divided with no two experts agreeing on any minor detail. But we all agree on what a well-rounded person is, but there has been a massive change in our methodology of what is well-rounded. Before, our grandfathers asked themselves “am I good, have I fulfilled my duties?” Today we ask “am I happy, have I fulfilled my dreams?”There are certain exercises my father forced me to do, I hated them at the time and found them mostly boring. I never looked to what I was trying to be taught through the exercise, learning an instrument, playing a sport, memory games, can always make you better rounded. I was impressed with my friend’s mum who took her engineering degree despite being a grandmother, just because she always wanted to. It is interesting to see children playing a game because you see them mastering negotiation, patience, teamwork, empathy, and learning to deal with failure, knowing that failing does not make you a failure. No two humans are ever the same and there is no formula or common description of a happy or well-adjusted person. However, we know what it looks like to be well-adjusted. We change all the time, mellow with age, but we always learn the formula for happiness too late. The formula is simple – let go of stress, have a bigger picture and always look at the bigger picture, manage your time well, manage your resources well, be principled but ready to compromise to achieve your principles, prioritise everything in order, love people, do not hold on to grudges, set goals, achieve goals, be generous and have a faith to hold on to. I do not follow this, but I will try. ramaisibo@hotmail.com