An Unexpected Parcel
Oh, the happiness of getting a parcel! I ordered some books from Amazon back in November and made the mistake of sending them to my mother's house and sending her a mail asking her to forward them to me. Unfortunately, my mother tends not to read mail much these days. Eventually my brother found the package and sent it on to me. I wasn't expecting it to arrive for a while, but he sent it via DHL, bless him, so I had a nice surprise today. And while I'm feeling grateful, thank you to the DHL courier who realised I probably wouldn't be home at this hour so googled me to find out my office.
I am now the happy owner of a couple of books that I expect will improve my life beyond the simple pleasure of having them turn up: Tim Ferriss's Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines and Habits of Billionaires, Icons and World Class Performers, and The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well, which I only ordered because it was on offer and I needed to make up the order price for free postage. It looks good, though - hygge is a Scandinavian concept defined variously as "the art of creating intimacy", "the absence of annoyance", "cosiness of the soul" and "cocoa by candlight" (to quote the book's introduction). In a way the books are at opposite ends of the happiness spectrum: Ferriss's book (like Ferriss himself) is all about achievement, while hygge seems to be about appreciating the little things in life. So I'm going to take The Little Book of Hygge home with me to read curled up on the sofa or snuggled up in bed (maybe with some cocoa) and keep Tools of Titans in my office to inspire me to do great things in between lessons ;-)
After-thought: The author of The Little Book of Hygge is a happiness researcher called Meik Wiking. Now my Danish isn't up to much but it looks like I have a book about the art of cosiness written by someone called Mike Viking. How the Danes have changed ...