“Is it destiny, algorithm, or an output of a great marketing team?” I asked myself as I enrol to this course in Coursera.
Despite not taking up Psychology as my undergraduate degree, I’ve always been a fan of it and observing what make people tick, and thanks to the pandemic, the time I spent at home gave me more time to dive into things that I’m genuinely curious about.
This course popped up, The Science of Well-being, just when I was diving more deeply into Buddhism. Upon reading a number of books and listening to dharma talks, I learned that happiness is something that is internal, and that the habits that we do and everything we put in our body, from food to thoughts, affect our emotions.
I first enrolled in this course some 3 months ago, however, I had an intricate sleeping schedule back then working in a graveyard shift. Hence, I decided to retake the course after quitting that job, and now, here I am, tracking my progress.
For those who are interested, you may enroll here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being (PS: This is not sponsored.)
In the course, you’ll read this in the introduction, there are 10 rewirement activities, one for each week. The students are encouraged to track their progress and reflect on each of them.
For the rewirement activities, I’ll be creating different articles per week (to keep this blog alive lol) to track my progress and to reflect on them as well.
Each rewirements, I unconver weekly, and I also do tracking on my personal unfiltered journal, but it would be great to share my process and progress here as well.
A part of the rewirement for the first week is to take surveys measuring your happiness level on a quantitative scale. The goal is to compare these baselines to the results at the end of 10 weeks and see improvement.
Here are mine for reference:
PERMA (out of 10)
Positive Emotions: 5.33
Engagement: 8
Relationships: 5.67
Meaning: 4.33
Accomplishment: 5.33
Health: 3.67
Negative Emotions: 7.67
Loneliness: 4
Overall well-being: 5.69
Note: There is a lot to unpack here…
Authentic Happiness Inventory = 2.63/5
(I’ll update this article at the end of the course to share the final results)
The rest of the rewirement activities will be in their respective articles:
Week 1 – Measure Your Happiness and Discover Your Strengths
Week 2 – Savouring & Gratitude
Week 3 – Kindness & Social Connection
Week 4 – Exercise & Sleep
Week 5 – Meditation & Gratitude Visit
Week 6 – Time Affluence!
Week 7 – Social Connection (I)
Week 8 – Social Connection (II)
Week 9 – Social Connection (III)
Week 10 – Social Connection (IV)
Final thoughts:
Aside from theories and studies, practice and cultivating habits are the strongest building blocks in building the life you want. Truth be told, these don’t seem easy when your mind is the one stopping you. I know because I’ve lived as a pessimist my whole life. I didn’t like it.
Last year, I unconsciously spent a huge amount of time hating people around me for various reasons. I look back on these thoughts by reading my journals, and I realise there’s a common denominator among all of these and it’s me. Maybe everyone was annoying because I have a problem.
I remember reading books and articles on Buddhism these past few years. Loving-kindness. Compassion. What do we gain from gathering hate and anger towards people who have the same goal as we are: to be happy.
With this in mind, I picked social connection as my final rewirement challenge. I want to exercise my strength in teamwork and zest to its fullest. I was ready to embrace that one quality that I know I have but always suppressed out of fear of being ignored. This activity was my chance to get rid of that fear and make it a habit to be more social and confident.
I’ve been mostly working from home even before the pandemic started. Looking back, it amplified my social anxiety. I was in my comfort zone which apparently isn’t always good.
To make sure I commit to the activity, I make sure I say yes to most invitations I get from my friends. I always have at least one day where I get out of the house and go to different stalls at the mall. I always make sure t say hi and ask for help from the salespeople at the mall.
When I commute, I’ve made it a habit to say “Thank you” while going out of the vehicle, and saying “Hello” when asking about something to the conductor.
Lastly, to track my progress I write them down in my journal, and at the same time, I write blog articles at the end of the week for the public to read.
I find that it’s not easy when you overthink it, so what I did is I just always made sure that I’d say “Hi, how are you” and let the conversation go where it’ll go.
Ten weeks went by quickly! I enjoyed the activities and the course so much that I actually forgot that they all took 10 weeks.
Last night, as I write my update for week 10, I took the PERMA and Authentic Happiness Inventory tests again, and I was surprised to see my score!
“What happened here??” was my first reaction. I’m surprised at how much they’ve changed over time. I do attest that compared to Nessy who decided to take the course months ago, Nessy who just finished the course sees the world in a better light now. Thanks to the literature, my eyes are opened to things that actually matter.
It helped me make decisions that have been sidelined for all these years. As I’ve mentioned in Week 10 – Social Connection (IV), I feel more courageous as well which is interesting. I was always afraid and weak. Now I know these have something to do with how I saw the world.
It used to be a place where I didn’t want to be. Everywhere I go seemed dangerous, and everyone I talk to seems frightening. I see things on the other side of the spectrum now. Everything seems more hopeful. Talking to strangers for 4 weeks opened me to a realisation that we long for connection, for nice people. Life is already filled with hardships and confusion, the least we can do on a daily is share lightness and happiness.
Overall, the experience has been incredible. These aren’t things we learned in school, and I wish they were. I wish it was part of the curriculum we had as teenagers. Having adequate knowledge about maths, science, and language is good, these are the fundamental things we need to survive in the corporate world. But you know what would be everlasting? A healthy body and mind. That’s what you need to live the life you want. You can speak all the languages in the world, but seeing things in the dark light would always leaves you feeling that you’ll never be enough. You may solve all the greatest mysteries in maths, but if you lack emotional strength, you’d be having a hard time solving mysteries of why life doesn’t seem to be worth living.
Now that I’ve completed the course, I’ll go on practising the activities I’ve learned here like WOOP into making my life a better one. I’ll also continue learning other areas that piqued my interest like learning how to learn and language learning. Best believe I’ll go on looking into psychology further to learn more so I could impart knowledge to other people.
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