Being the Great Mind's Happiness editor in NZ Herald has been an honour. I still don't know what it means or what I was supposed to do, but it sounded flash at parties, so I leaned into it.
For six months, I've used this paper's good name to secure interviews with top mental wellbeing experts from around the world. Some changed my life, others didn't, one turned out to be a bit of a jerk, but every chat was enlightening in some way.
To finish this journey, I've picked five concepts from my 25 interviews that I can't get out of my head. Your inner voice doesn't have to be an enemy, freezing cold water is good, friendship is everything, fears need to be faced, in 200 years from now no one will know I existed, and that's a good thing.
Ethan Kross is a neuroscientist, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and director of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory. He talks about the chirping "a***hole in our head" but believes we can rein in that incessant chatter and harness it for good.
As Kross told me when I zoomed him in June:
"Research shows that we find it easier to give good advice to others than to ourselves. It can help to say something like: 'Ethan, calm down; this is not the end of the world'.
"Another tool I find really useful in the heat of the moment is to remind myself how I'm going to feel about this thing tomorrow or next week, or next year.
"There's a lot of science behind this. We call it temporal distancing. When you are zoomed in and spinning your wheels, it feels like issues are all-consuming. What we lose sight of is the fact we've experienced these emotional ups and downs throughout our lives. And guess what? They tend to normalise over time.
"Simply remind yourself that you're probably going to feel better about this tomorrow and, if not tomorrow, next week or next month.
"When you wake up in the middle of the night ruminating on something, try asking: 'Ethan, how are you going to feel about this in the morning?' The quickest way to turn down chatter is to get distance."
Tim Clare suffered terrible panic attacks for over a decade. Worried his issues would affect his toddler, Clare decided to try every anxiety treatment he could until something cured him. He was annoyed to find cold water swimming not only worked but had a lot of science behind it. Since our chat, I've been doing it every day. It's good.
I just thought this was dumb and painful. You see the shots on YouTube. A drone going over like a lake. Someone doing yoga on the bank goes into the water to rising strings.
My swim wasn't in a beautiful area. It was a dirty park on a grey day at minus 2C; there was a guy watching smoking a roll-up. I didn't feel I was communing with nature.
The idea is that you're training your body to produce fewer stress hormones when it gets a shock. It's called cold adaptation. You're training yourself just to breathe while voluntarily facing something tricky on your own terms. You're practising getting stressed.
I used the protocols from his studies: six consecutive days, a three-minute dip in water between 10 and 16C. I haven't had a panic attack since, and it's been two and a half years, and I'd been having panic attacks for over a decade - really bad ones almost every week.
William B. Irvine is a best-selling author and professor of philosophy at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He teaches a great line in perspective.
Irvine: "There are people on $3 a day who would look at your life and say, 'wow, look at the food and water you have'. You are living their dream.
"You're also living your ancestors' dream. If you could show your great-grandparents what you have, they would be astonished. You've got an indoor toilet, a fridge, moving pictures in your pocket, you can fly to other lands. They'd assume you are in heaven.
"We're living their dream life, and we don't appreciate it. Instead, we focus on the things we don't have. There's always something more that would complete us.
"You want it bad, you get it, and you're happy for a day, and then you need something else. We take for granted things that our ancestors had to live without."
I zoomed Max Dickins about his book Billy No Mates. He cites research that suggests loneliness is worse than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, being obese or drinking excessively. I asked Max how people who are struggling could go about finding friends.
Dickins: "A good start is showing up in places where it's possible to make friends. If you've lost your group of friends, are you investing time in being in spaces where you can bond with people? A gym, a team, choir or club?
"I spoke to a guy the other day that loves military board games. He's found a games night and has made loads of mates cause they're all nerds like him. I wouldn't go, but it's been great for him.
"The best way to have friends is to be a friend. Can you make your friendships a little bit closer?
"You don't have to become a wishy-washy new man, but you can expand your toolbox. Do you have enough relational skills in your box to have the conversations you need to foster a close friendship?
"You can do banter, but can you go vulnerable when needed? When someone is disclosing something to you, can you respond in kind to make them feel better? Can you listen? Can you ask helpful questions?"
Author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman believes we should lean into our finitude. His message of insignificance is surprisingly positive.
"People hold back from doing things they would find meaningful because the stakes seem too high. You don't put yourself out there professionally or romantically because it would be terrible if you misjudge it. Putting your life in perspective lowers the stakes very quickly.
"If you acknowledge that in 200 years, nobody will care about anything you ever did, then why not do it?
"Some of the things you're wound up about today, no one will care about in a week, not even you.
"There is the type of thinking that Steve Jobs endorsed: that we are 'here to put a dent in the universe'. But if you have to matter on a cosmic level, like that, it sets the bar for what counts as a meaningful life much too high.
"It leaves no time for things we know are meaningful, like raising kids, being a good spouse, or spending time in nature.
"I've nothing against people setting out to create the next iPhone or be the next Shakespeare. I just think we've got a problematic cultural sense that that's what really counts.
"I'd rather see it as an umbrella of things that matter, including lots of things that are not attempting to be significant in an impossible universal way. Like spending your life engaging with friends, family, hobbies and nature."
We have a mental health crisis in New Zealand. People are struggling, and not just those on the edge. Everyone needs help from time to time. If you are living a life of "quiet desperation", as Henry David Thoreau wrote, I recommend reading (or listening to) as many smart people as you can.
Brilliant people have been trying to understand the human condition for thousands of years, luckily for us, it's never been easier to access their great minds than it is today.
The business offers women a safe space to learn outdoor skills. Video / Wild Chix