{"id":616,"date":"2026-01-16T05:58:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/2026\/01\/16\/the-secret-to-being-happy-in-2026-its-far-far-simpler-than-you-think-new-year-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T05:58:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:58:22","slug":"the-secret-to-being-happy-in-2026-its-far-far-simpler-than-you-think-new-year-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/2026\/01\/16\/the-secret-to-being-happy-in-2026-its-far-far-simpler-than-you-think-new-year-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"The secret to being happy in 2026? It\u2019s far, far simpler than you think \u2026 | New year | The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>In the end, though, there is a consideration even more fundamental than any of these, which is that it\u2019s not clear what life is really for at all, if it isn\u2019t for doing more of whatever makes you feel most alive. It\u2019s notoriously easy to slip into the unconscious assumption that any such aliveness is for later: after you\u2019ve sorted your life out; after the current busy phase has passed; after the headlines have stopped being quite so alarming. But the&nbsp;truth for finite humans is that this, right here, is&nbsp;real life. And that if you\u2019re going to do stuff that matters to you \u2013 and feel enjoyment or aliveness in doing it \u2013 you\u2019re going to have to do it before you\u2019ve got on top of everything, before you\u2019ve solved your procrastination problem or your intimacy issues, before you feel confident that the future of democracy or the climate has been assured. This part of life isn\u2019t just something you have to get through, to get to the bit that really counts. It is the part that really counts.<br \/>\n\u2014 Read on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2026\/jan\/03\/secret-being-happy-2026-simpler-than-you-think\">www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2026\/jan\/03\/secret-being-happy-2026-simpler-than-you-think<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the end, though, there is a consideration even more fundamental than any of these, which is that it\u2019s not clear what life is really for at all, if it isn\u2019t for doing more of whatever makes you feel most alive. It\u2019s notoriously easy to slip into the unconscious assumption that any such aliveness is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,7,74,38],"class_list":["post-616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-attention","tag-consciousness","tag-health","tag-society"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}