Things that make you unhappy: when special action is needed

Goal setting and KPI monitoring with happiness as the overall goal is fine for making sure that you have progress in your life. There may, however, be situations where special action is needed. If there are things that disturb your life to a large degree, stuff that makes you unhappy and you have clearly identified the item as a source of unhappiness; then you should take more direct action to stop the problem.

If you have such problems, you should think through your options. Is the situation controllable? Is it reasonable that you take action and what possibilities do you have? Will the grunge from this item die out if left alone? If you decide action is called for and justified, you need to make a plan on what to do with the situation. Some actions are purely internal - changes you make to your life to make things better. Some actions involve other people and can be risky and difficult to predict the outcome of. This is, as you all know, because people are irrational and unpredictable to a large extent when it comes to extraordinary situations, such as we are considering here.

If your loved one left you, it is natural for you to be unhappy about the situation. Think about what you can do then. If he/she made it very clear that it is final, finito, then there is little you can do in terms of external action without becoming a stalker - and that, my friend, is definitely not going to make you happy! :-) (Seek som info on stalkers - they're mostly pretty disturbed individuals.....). So --- the action to take is of the internal type: change your life. Get everyting at an arm's length and then start thinking. What can I do to diminish the effect of this horrible event? One approach, that works quite often, is to do absolutely nothing. Just wait it out, and time will heal your sorrows. In some cases, however, this approach is too slow, or just doesn't work at all and may jeopardize your mental health. There are, as I see it, three possibilities:

• seek a therapist (will often be dangerous to your financial stability....)
• pick up a new hobby to get your thoughts on something new
• find a replacement for the "lost item" (e.g. a new girlfriend/boyfriend)

Depending on the severity of the situation, I'd choose some combination of the above. If you are on the edge and ready to kill yourself, do them in the listed order, call a therapist now! :-) If you are just very frustrated, go for the hobby solution, preferably something physical like hill climbing, biking, darts or beer drinking... (don't overdo it though). If you are just lightly frustrated, it was probably not the love of your life, or even close to. Find another one-night, or maybe a rest-of-your-life person by doing the things you usually do to meet new folks.

If the other person is stalking you and thus making you unhappy: call the police. If the police adviced you to sue the stalker, you should consider doing it - take action, of the external type. Be harsh and exterminate the problem!

Then, when the extraordinary situation is corrected, get back to focusing on KPI's and happiness building! Enjoy the holidays!