The greatest gift

Typical. I sit down to write a column about happiness only to discover I'm not that happy. At this moment anyway. This could well change as I write, but I can't guarantee anything.

If I inquire a bit more - regular readers will know I enjoy nothing better than a rigorous self-inquiry session - I find that I'm not exactly unhappy either. I'm somewhere in between. Gemma Hayes, the Tipperary songwriter, calls it happy sad. That's where I am at this moment in time. Neither jumping for joy nor crying my eyes out. But, like I say, this is subject to change.

Everyone has their own happiness equation. You get older and wiser, with luck, and you begin to know how to make yourself happy. I frustrate myself this way. I know how to get happy but often choose another path. As though it's too much like hard work. Happiness? Oh yes, I know how to achieve that sense of inner contentment. I just can't be bothered sometimes.

Of course, it's not entirely within my control. I was 10 and blissfully happy swimming in the Atlantic one evening in the west of Ireland and then, as darkness crept in and the tide turned, my friend drowned. I was 17 and deliriously in puppy love and then, on a rainy New Year's Eve on a urine- splattered concrete step, the boy told me he didn't feel the same. I was 27, with my dream job, having bought a cool new apartment, and then my marriage fell apart. Happy sad. Say what you like about him, but Ronan is right. Life is a roller coaster.

Over the years I've discovered the best way for me to ride it out. I know my happiness equation. Putting my energy into motion, aka exercise, will do it. Eating the right foods, ones that encourage good health, works too. Doing good for others - anything from giving €50 to a stranger when their card won't work at the ATM, to finding the right quote at just the right time for the right person - also works.

I'll include Marianne Williamson's words here because they worked for my friend at a difficult time and they might work for you, too. But feel free to ignore this if they don't: "A tulip doesn't strive to impress anyone. It doesn't struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn't have to. It is different. And there's room in the garden for every flower. You didn't have to struggle to make your face different than anyone else's on earth. It just is. You are unique because you were created that way. Look at little children in playschool. They're all different without trying to be. As long as they're unselfconsciously being themselves, they can't help but shine. It's only later, when children are taught to compete, to strive to be better than others, that their natural light becomes distorted."

Another important part of my happiness equation is expressing myself. I'm sitting in a wine bar alone reading a book called The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt (if you are interested in happiness you need to read this book), and someone sitting on a high stool catches my eye. It's a man reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. (If you are interested in happiness you need to read this book also.) I don't know him, but I have to go over and talk to him, share my thoughts on his book and tell him about the one I'm reading. We sit, two strangers, for 20 minutes, talking about life and happiness.

Other elements in my happiness equation: Doing good for myself, which could mean anything from getting a pedicure to meditating. Being creative, which could mean anything from cooking to painting a banana in watercolours. Framing it. Cycling. Lately, I've been happiest pedalling around Dublin's docklands with the wind in my hair. No particular place to go. No time constraints. Just the wheels turning, my hands on the handlebars, the sky above, the earth below. Feeling part of everything. And then my skirt gets caught in the spokes and I nearly go head over handlebars. Happy sad.

Having followed much of my own personal happiness equation for several weeks now, especially the eating-the-right-foods part, I've had a spectacular relapse. It's another simple equation. Mistreating yourself plus beating yourself up about it equals unhappiness. But then another part of my happiness equation kicks in. A part that started to make sense only very recently. Everything is as it should be. I mean everything.

This is my last column for a few weeks. I'm off to the Greek island of Skyros for my holliers to work on my happiness equation, or write, or windsurf, or sing, or play games, or do absolutely nothing at all. Just the thought of it - the beach hut where I will sleep, the shower that's open to the sky, the long table heaving with fresh food prepared with love - makes me laugh-out-loud happy. I told you things could change. Be happy.