Ultimate happiness: Watching Netflix in your underpants with beer
Ultimate happiness is something that has its own word in Finland. People in Finland were the happiest in the entire world in 2019. The word the Finns talk about stands for watching Netflix with beer in your underpants. By yourself
Maybe you can picture it. Totally relaxing without a care in the world, in comfortable clothes—just your underwear—while watching Netflix. And with a drink in hand, achieving even more relaxation.
Now it might be helpful to know that in Finland they have the sauna culture, so that Finn can cool off from the sauna in front of the TV and that is why they hang out in front of the TV in their underpants.
What is happiness?
Happiness can come from all sorts of things. But what’s clear is that happiness is a feeling. When you’re happy, you feel it. A smile naturally appears on your face. You’re enjoying yourself. You feel energetic—or at least not tired.
According to science, happiness is also not something that is fixed. What used to make you happy doesn't have to make you happy now, and in the future it may yet make you happy again.
So it's a pretty relative term.
This is due to three elements:
- Happiness comes by comparison.
- The standard by which you set that equation can adjust.
- Standards for comparison are random ideas.
With these three elements, you can make the following predictions about happiness:
- Happiness does not depend on the quality of your life.
- Changes in your life, for better and for worse, only briefly affect feelings of happiness.
- People are happier after difficult times.
- People are generally neutral about their lives.
This also explains why happy feelings are about equally prevalent in rich and poor countries. So money does not make you happy, but of course it is nicer to cry in a Mercedes than on a bicycle.
Even people who have become paralyzed can be just as happy as lottery winners. People with ALS are often happier as their disease progresses, because they realize how much those around them love them.
Of course, extreme poverty and war aren’t exactly conducive to feelings of happiness. Isolation—that is, having no social life—is also a recipe for unhappiness[1].
How to achieve happiness.
So total poverty and war do not help you become happy. If you are in a war situation, the only question is what you can do about it. A logical decision is to flee.
When facing extreme poverty, it’s important to see if you can find work and, if necessary, get help to reduce financial problems—such as debt—in a positive and manageable way.
Then you have the problem of isolation. We are ultimately social animals so we need contacts with other people. Notice that you are in social isolation? Then join a sports club or, as an entrepreneur, you can also join a networking club to get social contacts from there.
Who knows what friendships could form?
Once these basic conditions are met, it’s time to really figure out for yourself what makes you happy. You can even start doing this while you’re still working on meeting the basic conditions.
For example, make a list of activities you enjoy doing.
This may include guilty pleasure activities.
Enjoy your guilty pleasure
Now, the Finnish concept of ultimate happiness might also sound like a guilty pleasure to you: watching something on Netflix all by yourself with a drink. Because while you’re doing that, you might actually start to feel guilty.
Is this even right for me? Shouldn't I be more social? Shouldn't I be exercising? Shouldn't I be reading a book? And so on.
Maybe you already do a lot of things and a lot of things you don't.
It doesn't matter. You may just embrace your inner Finn, with your guilty pleasure.
Just watch that bad movie in your underpants and enjoy this intensely.
Let your work be what your work is for a while.
Do this with your loved one, or deliberately alone, and enjoy watching your favorite series or movie.
Similarly, with every strange habit, you can ask yourself if this is not some kind of norm in another country. Like this one in Netflix is the norm for happiness.
What do you care about other people?
So for once, don't care about the norm, but ask yourself what makes you happy. This could be anything. It can be something you want to do alone or something with your friends.
Unlike the Finns, you can also be a very social person and actually experience ultimate happiness when you are on a roller coaster with your friends.
What matters. Embrace what makes you happy.
Don't feel guilty about it and don't think about what other people think.
Also listen to this podcast on ultimate happiness:
If you find that what other people think of you—or what you think other people think of you—is holding you back from doing the things you enjoy, then you may be struggling with limiting beliefs.
Beliefs are your thoughts about how the world works and how you are supposed to function in it. These beliefs often arise early in your life, during the first seven years of it.
One way to remove that obstacle so that you too can experience ultimate happiness is by applying regression therapy. In regression therapy, you are put into hypnosis. You are then suggested to go back to the first moment in your life when the idea of what other people thought of you stopped you from doing what you loved.
Usually, a memory then surfaces of a moment when other people held you back from experiencing ultimate happiness. This could be anything. Perhaps one of your parents held themselves back from experiencing ultimate happiness, and you’ve adopted that pattern.
Maybe it was a classmate who said something couldn't be done.
This is different for everyone.
Then the hypnotherapist will help you remove the obstacle. This can also be done in many ways. For example, by empathizing with people who were there at the time (this is much easier to do now that you are an adult) or by using your imagination to change the situation. For example, you let yourself react differently than you did in real life or you let your adult self talk to your younger self.
This may sound a bit separate, but this can help remove such an obstacle and that will help you throughout the rest of your life to experience ultimate happiness and grab it when you can grab it.
Ultimate happiness at work
Of course, you don't just want to experience ultimate happiness at home in your underpants. Of course, you may also want to grab moments like this at work, maybe not in your underpants then.
Happiness at work is about more than just job satisfaction[2]. It is also about having pleasant experiences at work and having an even mood throughout the day (preferably evenly positive 😉 ).
At work, achieving the flow state is also important for ultimate happiness. You are then so well engaged that you lose track of time. People reach the flow state faster when the work is challenging and at the limit of their level. So you don't get bored then because it's too easy.
In addition, you’ll reach a state of flow more quickly when you believe in your own abilities—meaning you have confidence that you can do your job well.
Are you feeling insecure at work? Do you have colleagues who cause you stress? If so, you can also examine the beliefs that are causing your stress—such as why you worry about your colleagues, why you think you might not be good enough for your job, or perhaps even why you feel like an imposter.
Even then, hypnosis can help you. With hypnosis, for example, you can change your behavior. If a colleague does something you don't like, you can better stand up for yourself. You can practice this in a guided visualization and with the swish technique you can even change a pattern. This is also a technique that works with visualizations and it can quickly help you break habits you are not happy with.
That way, you can also experience ultimate happiness at work.
Would you like to learn more about hypnosis and help yourself or others remove limiting beliefs that stand in the way of happiness? Then join the free online masterclass.
Or enroll directly in one of our training courses. Trainings are delivered online from a professional studio, ensuring flow and continuity of training.
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00292648
[2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2009.00270.x