Thriving the Huffington way

Last week, I attended a talk on a book I read a few months ago: “Thrive: the third metric to redefining success and creating a happier life” by Arianna Huffington. As the title implies, the book is about finding an offset to overwhelm, overwork, and our overflowing to-do list. Easier said than done!

How do you thrive? Arianna says by focusing on four little areas: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving. She takes us through each area, bulletproofing her facts with statistics, and punctuating her words with true stories of companies which have offered their workforce a third metric (a nap room, a no-mobile phone policy after hours, strict working hours) which resulted in an increase in productivity among their employees. I can’t see how this can be translated in a Greek workplace where we don’t even get a lunch break!

Furthermore, how can you incorporate a third metric to your daily routine when you are struggling to make ends meet, in the case of a single mother who is trying, at the end of each day, to wrap up all the daily requirements of rearing offsprings?

With tresses the perfect hue of autumnal auburn, and a face perfectly painted to match her dress and expensive adornments, Arianna insisted that in such dire times, when the wear and tear of daily life bears heavily on your shoulders, that is when we have to turn to the Stoics idea of happiness and turn inward. You need to make recharging and unplugging a priority. Prioritise inward time, sleep, silence, breaks, and master the art of giving.

I am a single woman living on my own and I have difficulty focusing on well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving! I am sleep deprived, feel exhausted, my adrenals are fatigued, my energy levels have been sucked dry. Could I/ should I/ must I employ the Stoics idea of happiness? I hear a resounding yes. Yes but...

My aim is to leave work on time and keep all work-related worries strictly confined to that timeframe, my goal is to not take things personally, and instead push myself to go out to meet friends and watch art, meditate for a few minutes a day, breathe deeper down the belly, eat or drink my veggies, watch happy movies, in other words take control of my inner world. Add some good, remove some bad.

Huffington also talked about turning to entrepreneurship as a means to allay the bad economic situation, spur growth and create jobs.

Do you have a product or service to offer? Then create it and fashion it in a way that will reach an audience, generate revenue for you and the wider world. This part of the conversation found fertile ground within the auditorium which was crowded with self-employed individuals trying to sell their ideas and attempting to open the floodgates of cash flow. Arianna referred all these people to her team working at the freshly established Huffpost Greece, putting her international media staff and forum to the service of these would-be entrepreneurs in an effort to help publicise their ideas and concretise their dreams. I pitied her team who was suddenly bombarded from all sides! I bet they will go looking for their third metric soon….

Madame Huffington ingrains her speech with humour, enrapturing her audience and finally sending us all off convinced of the emergency to live the good life.