{"id":37622,"date":"2015-12-21T12:38:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T20:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/?p=37622"},"modified":"2015-12-27T10:01:35","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T18:01:35","slug":"christmas-unknowingly-making-unhappy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/christmas-unknowingly-making-unhappy\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Christmas is (Unknowingly) Making You Unhappy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ahh Christmas. The time of year when we lie to our children, put on an average of 4lb<\/a> between the 25th<\/sup> December and New Year and pay for numerous gifts and meals with money we don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

What could be better?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, there is the other side to it. A few days holiday amidst what has been a relentlessly demanding working year, the chance to spend some quality time with loved ones without having to worry about email or your next day at work and quality entertainment on the TV (probably not the case if you live in the UK like me!).<\/p>\n

But none of these factors are what I really want to discuss today.<\/strong> You see I want to take a deeper look at Christmas, its implications and pose the question of why we settle for so little.<\/p>\n

Selling Ourselves Short<\/h1>\n

Did you know that the ancient Romans equivalent of Christmas \u2013 The Festival of Saturnalia \u2013 lasted a full month<\/a>? During this time their normal, strict social order was turned upside down and businesses and schools were closed so that everyone could join in.<\/p>\n

Even the Scandinavian Norse people had it better than us. Their celebration of the Winter Solstice sometimes saw up to 12 days of feasting.<\/p>\n

Yet here we are seemingly overjoyed with our measly two days of holiday!\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Something isn\u2019t right. Why are we so happy with so little and don\u2019t we have a right to ask for more?<\/p>\n

Getting to the bottom of the hype behind Christmas is not difficult. Culprit number one are the corporations.<\/p>\n

Every year, Christmas fever seems to start a little earlier. Adverts are reminding us by late October or early November, so by the time December comes, we\u2019re at a fever pitch of anticipation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be amazing. A miracle will happen,\u201d is what we\u2019re thinking, but then the day comes and nothing really changes.<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s great to open some presents, eat a (potentially) delicious meal and spend time with the ones you love, but are our lives forever altered as a result?<\/p>\n

Not really! The enjoyment soon wears off and a few days later we\u2019re back to the drudgery of work.<\/p>\n

And this, dear reader, is my point. We\u2019re selling ourselves short!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anticipationitis<\/h1>\n

There\u2019s a great Seth Godin quote about vacations which goes like this,<\/p>\n

\u2018Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, you ought to set up a life you don\u2019t need to escape from.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

His words highlight a modern epidemic that many of us experience \u2013 \u2018anticipationitis\u2019.<\/p>\n

The symptoms are an overly strong focus on future events that are imagined to bring us some form of relief, rest, excitement or escape from the drudgery of our day to day lives. The outcome of catching it is an inability to enjoy the now and feelings of disappointment when the imagined event doesn\u2019t live up to the hype. It usually afflicts us on a daily basis when we anticipate the onset of the weekend and also occurs once or twice a year when we know we have a vacation booked.<\/p>\n

It also strikes; you\u2019ve guessed it, at Christmas.<\/strong> And this is why \u2018the most wonderful time of the year\u2019 might actually be making you unhappy. Not in the sense that you don\u2019t enjoy the festivities, but in the sense that the system we live in has you caught in a trap. By influencing you into cherishing, and looking forward to, the very few moments when you have complete control over your time, it gets you to overlook the vast majority of your experience when you\u2019re wishing you were somewhere else.<\/p>\n

Think about it, if you weren\u2019t given those two days out of seven, or that brief holiday season at the end of the year, then the situation would be utterly intolerable. You would revolt, and band together with other people to set up a system where you all had greater self-determination over how you spent your time.<\/p>\n

However, because we are placated to some degree, through holidays like Christmas, it takes the edge off our discontent and we accept the status quo.<\/p>\n

This is why I\u2019m writing this cautionary Christmas tale.<\/strong> Not so that you are miserable over the holidays, but so that you start 2016 by giving your future some real consideration.<\/p>\n

As Seth Godin said, isn\u2019t it time you, \u2018set up a life you don\u2019t need to escape from\u2019<\/em>? I want to challenge your thinking and get you setting your sights higher than a couple of weeks\u2019 vacation every year, weekends and Christmas holidays.<\/p>\n

What about a life where you spend every day doing something you love and never catch yourself longing for the moments when you are free? What about a life where, if you want to spend more time celebrating with your loved ones, then you have enough control over your working hours to enable you to do so?<\/p>\n

You may think I\u2019m asking the impossible but there\u2019s nothing chaining us to the way we currently live. All we need to do is question the assumptions that so many people take for granted.<\/em> We\u2019d soon realise that we have control, both individually and collectively, over the direction of our lives and that if we want something greater, then we can create it.<\/p>\n

So enjoy your Christmas, have a great time, but realise that celebration should be a way of life and not a one off event!<\/p>\n

Want a FREE Christmas Gift?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then head over to Joe Barnes’s website Screw the System <\/a>and download your copy of 50 Reality Changing Insights. He’s also the author of the critically acclaimed Escape the System Now\u00a0<\/em>which you can learn more about here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Joe divides his time between writing, hypnotherapy and tennis coaching and has a passion for helping people to Succeed on their own Terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ahh Christmas. The time of year when we lie to our children, put on an average of 4lb between the 25th December and New Year and pay for numerous gifts and meals with money we don\u2019t have. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1014,"featured_media":37650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[33,32,6],"tags":[1743,4828,4641,1773,66,4629],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Christmas is (Unknowingly) Making You Unhappy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ahh Christmas. 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