Ask any child what he or she wants for Christmas and you’ll get an answer at once. Children know exactly what they want and don’t hesitate to dream big. 

Ask adults what they want for Christmas and you’ll get anything but straight answers. Ask them what they want from life and you’re likely to get an answer as exciting as cheap vanilla ice cream. 

According to a Gallup study of the global workplace, 63% of employees in 142 countries included in the study, aren’t engaged in their jobs, and 24% are actively disengaged.  Yet very few people feeling ‘stuck’ know what they want to do instead. It’s such a departure from our 5-year-old selves, it is disheartening. 

What happened? Oh yes, we’ve learned that there is no such thing as Santa Claus and that it’s better to be realistic than practise wishful thinking. We’ve also  boxed ourselves into roles defined by our CVs and got used to focus on our weaknesses, rather than strengths. 

“I can never be an entrepreneur - I am just not a creative person.” 

“I could not travel on my own: I hate group holidays but I’m just not brave enough to travel solo.” 

“I could not write a book - I don’t have the patience."

“I could not quit smoking, I have no will power”.

We spend so much time and energy learning to be sensible that the word ‘dream' has remained a thing of childhood or worse - a ludicrous concept on a cover of a self-help book. Little by little our world has collapsed down to the size of an office building and the reach to the stars has been shortened to the length of a daily commute. And yet we know that impossible things have been and are achieved by dreamers (although such people are usually referred to as ‘visionaries’, ‘lucky’ or ’extraordinarily talented').

Think Nelson Mandela, JK Rowling, Steve Jobs, Andy Murray, Ellie Simmonds. They dreamt big and knew exactly what they wanted 'for Christmas’. 

Imagine yourself standing on top of a hill under the vast blue sky and taking a deep breath. With no ceiling and no walls it is just possible to feel that the world is full of possibilities. Make a wish, dream big this Christmas, be audacious and open to opportunities. You never know what you might unwrap.  

I travelled to New York and spent the first couple of days gorging on the treasures of Manhattan’s art museums. Met's and MOMA’s collections are enviable - Picasso, Cézanne, Matisse, Klimt, Modigliani - to give you my personal highlights. Taking it all in, I could not help but think about the talk by the philosopher Alain de Botton, I attended earlier this year.

Alain de Botton and art historian John Armstrong wrote a book Art as Therapy, proposing an idea that art has a purpose beyond aesthetic pleasure. Art may serve as therapy and help us with such difficulties as restlessness, stress, anxiety, fear, finding purpose, fulfilment and love.  

It goes like this: feeling anxious about your status? Longing for glamour? Consider Johannes Vermeer’s The Little Street 1658. The artist chose to paint simple quarters with women going about their daily work: sweeping the yard, sewing, minding children. There is no glamour on the canvas, instead, Vermeer showed preciousness of the modest life and tranquility of daily chores. If the Dutch painter chose to accentuate the beauty of the ordinary life, might his work help to lessen our status anxiety?

At MOMA I stumbled upon Henri Matisse’s Dance I. I found it impossible not to smile. There is so much joy in that painting, with dancers floating in the air, so much hope and optimism, communicated through the colours of blue and green. It is no wonder Matisse apparently referred to Dance I as "the overpowering climax of luminosity”.  

It’s not surprising that MOMA’s visitors choose to sit down and stay a while in the room with Cézanne’s Water Lilies. The painting is so enchanting in its tranquility, it allowed me to time travel through memories of summer, smelling of wild flowers and bathing in warm sunlight. I felt instantly at peace, as if after meditation. 

Alain de Botton also thinks that we are subconsciously drawn to works of art, which may help to fill in a hole or re-balance us. A while ago when I was still working in the City, I bought a print by Edd Pearman Too Eager To Please. I saw it at an art fair in London and liked it at once even before hearing its story. The artist interviewed his friends in their 20s who got jobs in the City. He asked them whether the ‘high-flying’ jobs met their expectations and how they felt about their lives. It’s true that one picture says a thousand words.

Do the standard seats on Ryanair and in Odeon cinemas need to be so uncomfortable? Do the website canvases of Weebly and SquareSpace need to be so basic, unless you pay the premium? 

"Yes, they do", I say, putting my economist’s hat on.

In economics there is a concept of price discrimination, and contrary to what it may sound like, it is good thing, both in terms of efficiency and fairness.

Price discrimination is simply selling different units of the same product at different prices. First-degree or perfect price discrimination is when each unit is sold for the maximum price an individual consumer is willing to pay. Imagine Apple selling each iPhone at different prices to Tom, Dick and Harry! Perfect price discrimination is rare but it still exists. For example, business mentors sometimes let entrepreneurs pay as little as they can afford for a start-up coaching session. This is better for both the mentor (who still gets something for her time) and for an entrepreneur (who has access to a service he would otherwise not be able to afford). 

You’ll be more familiar with the second-degree price discrimination, when the same product is sold at different prices, depending on how many units you buy. Think “3 for 2”, "buy 1, get 2nd half price” deals in supermarkets or buying 10 personal training sessions at bulk discount. Consumers ‘self-select’, according to their preferences, and businesses maximise their profits by offering ‘deals’.

Now imagine that we swap the word ‘quantity’ with the word ‘quality’. Here businesses must come up with the ways to induce those, who can afford it, pay more for premium services, such as better cinema seats, more attentive stewardesses and fully integrated e-commerce of website canvases. The trick here is to reduce the quality of the ‘standard’ product, so as not to cannibalise sales at the high end. 

Economy class needs to have narrow seats, screaming babies, atrocious service and inedible food so that business travellers and wealthy individuals are never tempted to travel in Economy. This quality discrimination has been a feature of transportation services for hundreds of years, as commented on by a XIX century French economist Emile Dupuit (this translation featured in an article by R.B. Ekelund “Price Discrimination and Product Differentiation in Economic Theory: An Early Analysis” in Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1970):

It is not because of the few thousand francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third-class carriage or to upholster the third-class seats that some company or other has open carriages with wooden benches… What the company is trying to do is prevent the passengers who can pay the second-class fee from travelling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich… And it is again for the same reason that the companies, having proved almost cruel to the third-class passengers and mean to the second-class ones, become lavish in dealing with first-class customers. Having refused the poor what is necessary, they give the rich what is superfluous. 

single

sɪŋg(ə)l
adjective

1. only one; not one of several
2. unmarried or not involved in a stable sexual relationship

Being single isn’t something to trumpet about. In the office you are treated like a work horse, the government incentivises you to tie the knot, the society thinks you are selfish and, worst of all, some take it upon themselves to pity you. 

A friend of mine had a late job interview one Friday. At the end of it a middle-aged man she was speaking to said “It’s late - I’d better go home and see my kids.” It did not sound very polite. That episode prompted a brainstorming session on the subject of singularity.

Married and loved up couples came to mind first. It is not uncommon for couples to sideline their single friends. As soon as a few of my girlfriends got engaged, I was subtly removed from their social circle. The only parties singles are invited to attend are Christmas drinks but dinner parties are usually reserved for couples. I blame Bridget Jones but is she really a typical singleton?

Single friends I know have much more interesting lives than my married friends. They play in orchestras and sing in choirs, attend lectures, classes and debates, they frequent art galleries and test their endurance in outdoor challenges in the UK and abroad. They usually go on much more adventurous and exciting holidays. 

My single friends aren’t selfish. If anything, they make the best godparents, they find time to console, listen and support - they are the ‘bestest’ of friends. They view themselves as individuals not halves, which makes them great companions. 

Hannah Betts wrote a compelling article for The Telegraph this year Being Single by Choice is Liberating. She challenges the prejudice that "single living is somehow unusual, brave or downright deviant.” It is a fact that in Britain, for example, “almost 2.5 million men and women aged between 45 and 64 have their own home and live in it with no spouse, partner or other family member.” Betts suggests that people choose to live on their own because it is superior to do so. After all, both men and women are a lot more independent today than the previous generations, often living away from their ancestral roots, relying on themselves for financial support and choosing their own social circles.  Betts adds that being single by choice is a lot more social than what “singularity” may suggest and responsible. Would not you rather be in charge of your own happiness?   

Betts also quotes Eric Klinenberg’s book, Going Solo: “Living alone comports with our most sacred modern values: freedom, autonomy, control of one’s time and space, and the search for individual fulfilment. <…> It also helps contemporary people achieve solitude, which we need more than ever now that we spend so much of our time immersed in social media, digital culture and busy professional lives."

Whether you are single by choice or otherwise, be guided by your own barometer of happiness. Learn to accept yourself as an individual, not seek a ‘soul mate’ to 'complete you'. "If we lone wolves end up as someone’s partner, we’ll be better companions because of it; and if we do not, better company for ourselves."