If you are not AT LEAST one of these things, then what exactly are you doing to support life on this planet?

Climate change is happening. There is plenty of evidence to support that it’s the result of human activity. Yet, still we gobble up our meat, have our children, and zip around the planet; the three single most important things most of us in the industrialised world could choose not to do to reduce our Co2 emissions.

Of course, I’m all three of these things – a childless vegan cyclist. Yet, it’s not in a self-righteous, self-sacrificial, kind of way. What would be the joy in that?

Happier for it

No, it’s that in being all these things, I’m happier for it. I’ve listened to the evidence, reflected, been open to having my culturally determined views challenged, and had the courage to make changes to my life.

Having children

There is no evidence that children improve people’s happiness and wellbeing. Having a child may make life feel a little more purposeful for some people, but overall having a child is more likely to diminish a person’s happiness. I love children, and some of us need to have one, or perhaps two at most, but having a child is tough. There are, of course, sweet divine moments interacting with children, but it also comes with a lot of daily stress and difficulty. I’m sure there will be plenty of people who have children who will say it was worth it, yet from a personal happiness perspective, on average it quite simply isn’t.

Eating veggies

It’s less clear cut from a happiness perspective when it comes to veganism.  However, those that increase their vegetable consumption from zero to eight portions of vegetables per day exhibit sizeable increases in their life satisfaction. I turned vegan in 2010, and though I’ve been less strict at times, one of the most beneficial things in turning vegan is that I’m more mindful about what I put in my body. I’m healthier for it – if nothing less than because I turn down a lot of sugar-loaded goods on account of them not being vegan. Personal happiness aside, however, going vegan benefits the wellbeing of non-human beings with absolute certainty.

How we move

As for cycling, well, the data shows that those that make their way to work using active transport (be it on foot or by bicycle) are happier for it. My casual observations of those sitting in their cars in traffic as I whizz by can attest to that. There are the obvious health benefits to moving about by our own volition also. On a personal level, my bicycle has been my biggest teacher. In fact, it was through travelling around the world by bicycle that my happiness reached unfathomable depths (more about that here). I’ve learnt from slow journeying that we find happiness here, where we are now, or not at all.

Why are there not more of us?

I often wonder why more of us don’t do these things. I mean, we could all live more happily AND reduce the threat of climate change.

One possibility for inaction, other than refusal to believe the evidence or care (which itself might reflect personal unhappiness), could be that people don’t know how important these things are for climate change mitigation and personal happiness. Or it might be that some people think there’s no way in preventing catastrophic climate change, and in feeling anxious deep down, are just desperately grabbing what they can in the hope that they’ll come out okay.

I think these are both partly true. But then there is our economic, social, and political system, which doesn’t encourage these choices. In fact, having children, eating loads of meat, and travelling rapidly to all corners of the planet, are important narratives about the so-called good life. There is a lot of status tied up in doing these things.

Yet, they are false narratives that support a system prioritising profit over the wellbeing of people and planet. There is money to be made (in the short term at least and for a small subsection of people who already have plenty) in having excess labour, in the meat and dairy industry, and having people zipping about the planet.

Where will you put your faith

And in that same system, there is a great deal of faith that the system itself will generate a solution to climate change that will avoid having to change how we live. Yet, of course, that won’t happen. It’s an unbalanced system that extracts and manipulates for the sake of perpetual growth. An always hungry system, unable to sit still – and your sitting still won’t serve that system.

A correction will have to come some way or another. And I prefer the sitting still approach. There’s much more happiness in it…

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Thank you for reading this article. If you’d like to read similar articles linking happiness research to everyday life go here.

And if you’d like to get deeper into happiness with me then consider getting my book A Journey For Happiness: The Man Who cycled to Bhutan – order here.