Pillars of Happiness: Resources

Each Tuesday, I'm reflecting on how aspects of our lives and society relate to happiness and how we can increase our happiness. This week, I'm looking at the fourth pillar of my framework Pillars of Happiness - Resources. How can we work with belongings, skills, time, money and energy to nurture our happiness?

The Pillars of Happiness is a framework I’ve developed over the years to understand happiness and its determinants. This post is about the fourth pillar: Resources.

How can we leverage our resources to promote happiness? Resources help us realise dreams, strengthen connections, and enjoy life. The usual suspects are time and money, but let’s also include our physical belongings, skills and talents, and our energy.

No matter the type, the approach is the same:

• Awareness – take stock of what you have and what you want.
• Declutter – release what doesn’t serve your happiness.
• Prioritise – focus on what matters most.
• Enjoy – mindfully use and connect to your resources to feel light and abundant.

Let’s dive into each.

Physical belongings (tools)

Is it strange to call our belongings tools? Not really. Gadgets, furniture, clothes, photos — they all help us live, protect us, or spark memories. When we treat them as tools, we can ask a simple question: Does this tool support my dreams & desires, my connections, or my enjoyment?

Awareness

We’ve come a long way from the days when everything we owned could be carried to greener pastures. Today, even what hides in cupboards still takes up mental space. Every item needs storing, maintaining, cleaning — that’s time, money, and energy. It can even push us to want a bigger home “just to fit it all,” and it can whisper guilt when we don’t use it.

Become aware: Walk through your space and notice what you carry without touching: the identity books you haven’t read, the kitchen gadgets you never use, the hobby supplies nagging from the shelf. Ask of each:

Do I feel lighter or heavier when I see it?​
​What do I actually want right now?​
​Does this belong to my current dreams & desires or to someone else’s idea of me?

Declutter

I love Marie Kondo’s style because it’s about connection. She integrates Shinto concepts in her method which assigns every object a spirit. After all, everything is energy and so are our belongings. Touch each item. Feel its story. Keep what sparks joy and supports who you are now (you can become a pastry chef or a knitting queen later!). Everything else can go — gifted, donated, sold, or recycled.

Think of it as energy flow: stuffed wardrobes = stuck energy. Clear space = moving energy. And yes, that’s felt in the body. Releasing excess lowers background stress and helps the nervous system settle.

How to do it (simple Marie Kondo flow):

1. Sort by category (clothes → books → papers → misc → sentimental).
2. Pile it up to see reality (awareness).
3. Touch each piece and connect with it (you can choose to see this as a spiritual practice); keep only what sparks joy and aligns with your dreams.
4. Thank-and-release the rest.

Prioritise & Enjoy

Now that you’ve chosen your keepers, give them a front row in your life. Store them where you’ll actually use them. Put the guitar on a stand, the mixing bowl at eye level, the photo album on the coffee table.

• Prioritise: Schedule time with your tools that matter (yes, literally block the calendar). If it supports a dream, it earns a prime spot and your attention.
• Enjoy: Use them. Savour them. You consciously chose these tools — let them deliver present-moment joy. This “here-and-now” enjoyment helps trigger the calm chemistry (oxytocin/serotonin/endorphins), settles you into rest-and-digest, and keeps you out of the dopamine chase and hedonistic adaptation loop.

Take-away: Belongings are tools. Keep only those that align with your happiness and let them bring you joy today.

Skills & Talents

It’s surprisingly hard for many of us to see and value what comes easily. We often dismiss the effortless things — “oh, that’s nothing” — and chase what’s difficult instead. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stretch ourselves and learn new skills, but happiness often hides in what flows naturally.

In Western culture, only certain skills are celebrated. Schools reward maths, science, and IT. Parents funnel children into swimming, drama, coding, or languages. These are valuable, of course, but they leave little space for children (and adults) to explore their own unique mix of abilities. When was the last time weaving, storytelling, or simply being the person who brings people together was given the same recognition?

I love to imagine an (idealised) tribal community where everyone contributes what they do best — hunting, weaving, healing, singing, raising children. Skills defined identity, and people could even be renamed if they uncovered new gifts. There’s wisdom here: happiness grows when our talents are seen, valued, and used in service of others.

Discover Your Talents

Awareness: Start by noticing what comes naturally. Where does your energy flow without effort? Which activities make you lose track of time or feel in “the zone”? What do others often compliment you on? Sometimes people around us can see our gifts more clearly than we can. Writing these down can be surprisingly powerful — a list of “things I do with ease” is often a hidden map to joy.

Declutter: Look at the skills or roles you’ve taken on out of expectation, obligation, or comparison. Do they feel heavy or draining? Do they align with your dreams and desires, or were they adopted because you thought you “should”? Letting go of these frees space for what feels more authentic. You don’t need to be good at everything.

Prioritise & Enjoy: Nurture the talents that light you up. Give them priority in your daily life — whether it’s creativity, organisation, empathy, or leadership. Make time for them just as you would for exercise or work. And most importantly, enjoy them. Flow is happiness. When you lean into ease, you naturally invite joy, connection, and contribution.

Take-away: Your talents are resources. Honour them, use them, and let them connect you with joy and purpose.

Time

Time is simply one moment after another. We can’t skip ahead, we can’t go back, and we can’t store it up. Humans invented calendars, clocks, and schedules to make sense of it, but at its core, time is steady — the same for everyone. The only difference is how we use our share of moments.

Have a happy week!

Anja