SmellTheFlowers

By all means take it easy, chill, relax, don’t have kittens over trivial things. Activate the Mehitabel Protocols and extract as much joy as you possibly can out of this wretched social order we’re gripped by. On no account, though, resort to sad little gimmicks like this:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jun/21/smile-could-the-pandemic-lead-to-happier-times-laurie-santos-professor-of-happiness-yale
Or this:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/05/ready-for-the-roaring-20s-its-time-to-re-learn-how-to-have-fun-says-happiness-professor
(Frankly, if one needs to resort to this sort of thing one deserves any amount of shite one, invariably, ends up getting.)

Avoid falling into the clutches of the Happyness (sic) Industrial Complex. You might start with a harmless-sounding weekend seminar on Happy Happy Clappy Cognition and you may end up on morality pills (or antidepressants, same difference) for the rest of your lives. Also, and on the other side of this ongoing existential piffle, avoid buying the third rate merchandise spewed by con men of the Jordan Peterson variety. Bliss is possible. Just don’t confuse it with “fun” and the ersatz joviality of selfies. One thing is good, genuine, unpretentious merriment and quite another this current hysterical, dogmatic worship of The Little God Fun, as my good friend professor Hinks used to inveigh against a long time ago. (Cheers, toots!)

Oh, and in for a penny… To add a note of delicious flippancy to the rather serious theme of “happiness”, here’s my favourite (possibly semi-misquoted) line from one of my favourite films of all times, Richard Lester’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Michael Crawford (on realizing how crossed his and Annette Andre’s stars truly are):
Then, my love, for us there can be no happiness...
Annette Andre: Then we’ll just have to learn to be happy without it.

Admirable attitude, girl. Way to go.
Have a spiffing weekend.