I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 April 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 137 →Live in the moment. Enjoy life because time cruelly speeds up as you get older and becomes scarily finite.
Give, give, give. The more you give, the happier you are.
Nothing’s guaranteed and things change in an instant, and to get used to that and stay in the moment.
More from Meghann Fahy
View profile →Someone to clean my apartment.
I had a casting director once stop me in the middle of an audition and tell me to go wash my face in the bathroom because she felt my makeup was too distracting, but I wasn’t wearing any. It was mortifying. It felt like a power play and I was so young, I didn’t know what to do.
I’ve never really had a horrible job – I liked working at restaurants and being a nanny when I wasn’t acting.
All of the anxious thoughts that you are able to escape during the day that somehow know when you are lying down to relax.
To myself for diminishing my gut feelings until quite recently.
When I realised that I could get myself through anything that came my way.
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