A Lot Of People Seem To Act This Way Already

What would really make you happy? More money, more fulfilling work, more time to spend with your loved ones? All good, but have you considered a box of raisins, a few episodes of Bluey and a nap? That’s what Dr Hasan Merali is suggesting (well, sort of). He’s the author of Sleep Well, Take Risks, Squish the Peas: Secrets from the Science of Toddlers for a Happier, More Successful Way of Life and man, am I torn by his thesis that the toddler life philosophy offers valuable adult wellbeing lessons.

Really? Well, toddlers are also enormously self-absorbed, so most modern journalists are already more than half-way there.  

There is plenty to admire in the toddler Weltanschauung. In a New York Times article on his book, Merali highlights their talent for positive self-talk and insatiably asking questions.

Ah, yes, that indeed is something modern journalists could certainly do with, then they might serve a more useful function than simply regurgitating government & charity statements without thinking.  

Merali also points out that toddlers move “joyfully and instinctively” for up to five hours a day. This is vastly easier when you don’t have to sit at a desk to pay for Ella’s Kitchen pouches and Duplo or get stabbing shoulder pains simply by putting your socks on.

Oh dear.  

Toddlers also laugh six times as much as adults. I envy that unbridled joy, the kind you can only feel when you have never contemplated climate breakdown, global suffering, PMQs or renewing your home insurance.

Can you do anything about any of those things? No? Then why worry? 

...they are unfettered, anarchic id, lacking the ability to regulate their emotions and any grasp of logic, capable of terrorising an entire household (city?) if they don’t get their way.

Modern progressives already behave like toddlers then. What more would they need to learn from this book?