Hold On to That Feeling

Every Wednesday for twenty years, Jan Mul of the Netherlands took a train to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. From there, he'd fly to another European city — often Stockholm, but sometimes Barcelona, Helsinki, or Hamburg. Upon arrival, he'd spend an hour or two walking around the terminal, then board another flight back to Amsterdam.

I think of this story whenever I'm trying to decide what to do next. It makes me smile, partly because I too love traveling with no great sense of obligation to do something at my destination, but also because it's inspiring in a different way. Unlike many people, Jan Mul knew what made him happy and wasn't afraid to pursue it. He also traveled for pure enjoyment, not as a means to some other end.

Starting point

What makes you happy?

If you want to be like Jan Mul — perhaps without flying to a random city every week and never leaving the airport — you first need to understand what makes you happy.

It seems like a simple exercise. But if you know how to be happy, why do you feel anxious? Why does the sense of time's passing seem so overwhelming? For some of us, it's because of the belief that nearly everything we do must conform to some form of utility. Doing something that isn't in service of a clearly defined goal or relationship feels strange and uncomfortable.

Intuitively, you might have an idea of something that would make you happier, but you struggle with overcoming this belief about utility. You might need a nudge in the right direction. Here's a tip: to be happier (and less anxious), start with feeling more alive.

"Alive" is a funny word for a feeling. You're always alive, at least until you're dead. But you don't always feel that way. Many days, much of the time, you continue without feeling one way or another. You adopt the classic British wartime slogan: "Keep Calm and Carry On." That might be a good way to survive a war, but it doesn't help when you're stressed out and not sure you're spending your time well. If you keep doing the same things, you'll continue to feel the same way.

So as you've been trying to pay closer attention throughout your day, try to notice the standout moments where the world comes into sharper focus. When you encounter moments where you feel more alive than usual, they might startle you at first. "Oh. I feel alive. Wow."

Three ways it shows up

The moments where it happens

When you've been in a long period of sadness or depression, these moments of aliveness can be especially noticeable. For me, a moment like this feels as though the sky is opening up.

If you've been sad or depressed, experiencing moments like these probably aren't the end of those feelings. Experiencing the highlights in addition to the sadness is essential. The highlights provide a break, a reprieve, and maybe even a guidepost of where you need to focus your attention more.

Because time is limited, you want to capture more of these experiences — not once in a while. Ideally, you want to feel alive every day. This is a powerful antidote to feeling overwhelmed.

A harder truth

The person you're neglecting is yourself

When you struggle with time anxiety, you might be experiencing a form of cognitive dissonance: a gap between your beliefs and your behavior. You know you can't do everything, but you keep trying — and you keep failing.

It's not letting down other people that's the problem. You're also letting yourself down. You deserve better.

It's hard to do what makes you happy, usually because you're not used to it, and because other people don't always understand it.

For anyone who struggles to prioritize their own happiness, know this: the person you're neglecting the most is yourself. This is especially true for anyone in a service role who especially likes to help others. Breaking out of that expectation — or at least modifying it somewhat — is hard. It's also an important key to feeling more purposeful.

A personal inventory

Build a memory bank of alive experiences

Even though you intuitively know some of what makes you happy, it can be helpful to reflect on a broader set of experiences. Start by making a list of times you've felt alive. These could be recent memories or times from long ago.

Here's a short list of a few of my memories (jotted down quickly without overthinking):

• Hosting a world record attempt for the most people dressed in dinosaur costumes
• Traveling through the night on a train in Eastern Europe
• Connecting with a friend I hadn't seen or talked to in a while
• Volunteering for a cause or campaign I cared about
• Solving a problem in a book manuscript and making progress
• Taking my event team to an obstacle course activity
• Speaking on a stage in front of a lot of people

Sometimes the magic comes from a unique, one-off experience — hosting the world record attempt — and other times from something you do often. For the recurring memories, my mind often goes to running outside. Not every run is magical — in fact, most aren't — but for me there's something special that occurs often enough to make the magic worth chasing.

One note: if you're making a list of your own, be wary of adding activities like "watching TV." Passively watching a screen isn't the best remedy for feeling less anxious about time. Bingeing causes more time to pass with nothing to show for it.

Once you have a list, identify some repeating elements. What do some of the activities have in common? For me, they include:

With this list, I can see that several activities on my memory bank connect to these elements. Hosting events requires hard work — and can be challenging — but when done well, they can make people happy.

Some repeat elements aren't about service to others. When I was traveling all the time, it didn't have much to do with anyone other than me. Feeling more alive often relates to looking within yourself, not outside.

Jan Mul's weekly jaunts were not in service to anyone. They recharged his batteries and allowed him to be more helpful elsewhere. Remember: you want to find the things that make you feel most alive. Follow that feeling. Chase the sun.

From the readers

Random acts of feeling alive

For many people, the idea of flying to nowhere — and then repeating the same trip every week for twenty years — is preposterous. But Jan Mul's story points to an important principle: doing random things can make you happy. If you like to do something that might be considered strange or odd to other people, you might have found an important clue to making the most of your time.

I asked my readers for examples of something unusual that makes them happy:

Answers like these align with Jan Mul's weekly flight-to-nowhere habit. If it's fun for you, do it. Do more of what makes you happy, even if other people don't understand it.

A practice for working with it

Make your own alive list

How it ended

The last flight

Whether you're struggling with your day-to-day or seeking a greater purpose — or both — feeling more alive is a great start.

There's a sense we experience when we feel most alive. Life is fleeting, and we can't do it all. Find the things you truly enjoy and do more of them.