The Little Book of Lykke: The Danish Search for the World's Happiest People(9)

Patches of land around the street were planted with vegetables – and so the Hulbert Street Guerrilla Garden was created. Soon, it would not be uncommon for people to come home and find potatoes and carrots on their doorsteps. ‘How did you get the permission?’ people would ask Shani. ‘Permission, do you think I need permission?’ she would reply, and, based on that philosophy, the Hulbert Street Movies started – once a month, they would watch a movie together in the street. People brought their own chairs and a contribution to the pot-luck dinner.

The street-community resources grew to include a shared cargo bike, the Hulbert Street Book Exchange (bring a book, take a book) and a pizza oven on wheels (owned by no one yet shared by all), which led to weekly pizza dinners. And goats. Yes, goats. Two houses agreed to take down the fence between their lots and made room for them.

Shared pizza ovens and number of inter-front-lawn-goats are not a bad measure of the strength of a street community, but perhaps the best testimony were the reactions from the street when Shani and Tim had their safe, which held cash, a computer and back-up drives, stolen. Neighbours came by with food and money (one with a note: ‘Here is $500. I am giving it because I can. Please do not give it back’). One neighbour started a Dropbox to help re-establish the files and pictures Shani and Tim had lost. One of the neighbours’ sons gave them a card reading, ‘Life’s disappointments are harder to bear when you don’t know any swear words’ as he gave Shani the first loaf of bread he had ever baked and his entire collection of shells.

‘What would you recommend people do if they want to do what you did?’ I asked Shani.

‘Don’t do anything we did,’ she laughed. ‘Figure out what works for you. What to build your community around. Find out what interests people, what unites people, and build on that. One of my friends started to build a community in his street around tomatoes. Now there are fifteen families coming together each year to can tomatoes.’

There are several things we can learn from Shani’s story. First of all, there is an advantage in being a defined community: Hulbert Street is a cul-de-sac, which means the community is clearly geographically defined. I suspect this is also one of the reasons why islanders often experience a stronger sense of community and identity. Second, we must seek to secure public space that can be used – a closed street works because there is no through traffic, but so does a common piece of green space. Third, one of the most powerful motivators is dreams. Martin Luther King did not give an ‘I have a nightmare’ speech and, in Hulbert Street, what sparked the community efforts was Shani’s question about what people would like to see their street be. Or, in the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince:

‘If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.’





HAPPINESS TIP:

TAKE A STREET AND TURN IT INTO A COMMUNITY

Bring your local community together by creating a directory to share skills and resources.

Be like Shani and the community at Hulbert Street and start by building connections with your neighbours. Knocking on a neighbour’s door for the first time may be terrifying for some, but the rewards can be big.

You could create a directory for the street or the stairway, ask whether they have some books they would like to donate for the mini-library you are setting up or whether they would like to take part in establishing a community garden in the neighbourhood.

The most important thing is to start talking with your neighbours, to learn their names, find out their skills, interests and needs and build a community around them – a community that is as unique as the people who live in your street.





IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RAISE HAPPINESS


Think of a time when you felt happy or – feel free to tone it down a bit – a time you felt good, or laughed or smiled. Bring that memory to mind and try to remember the details of the situation.

Odds are you thought of a memory where you were together with other people. Mine is sitting in a cabin after a day of skiing, surrounded by friends, with a fire in the fireplace and whisky in my glass.

I have asked audiences across the world to think of good times and, more often than not, people are with other people in their memories. This proves nothing about the importance of people when it comes to happiness. However, people have an easier time remembering numbers and data if we give them some scenes to attach them to.

So, what does the evidence say? Well, if we look at the link with how often people meet socially with friends, colleagues or relatives, we see a clear pattern. The more often people meet, the happier they are. However, one thing is quantity, another thing is quality.

How often do you meet socially with friends, relatives or colleagues?





How many people are there with whom you can discuss intimate and personal matters?



Source: European Social Survey, 7th Wave





I cannot be the only one who has felt lonely in a crowded room. We may see and meet other people, but the important thing is whether we connect. Do I get you? Do you get me? Do you trust me enough to let your guard down, to let me know what is really on your mind? To let me in? We also see this reflected in the numbers. The more people we have with whom we can talk about personal matters, the happier we are.