Let’s communicate!

May 3, 2008 by Leave a Comment

In her latest newsletter, Lynda Goldman tells of a trip to LA where she got on a bus expecting a tour of the city…until she started seeing signs for the airport.

“He apologized, and said he always told people that we were on a collector bus to meet our tour. Because he did this every day, he assumed he had told us what we needed to know.  What a bad start to the tour. Instead of being happy passengers, we were all filled with anxiety, not knowing where we were going. ”

I know I am often guilty of this.  Guilty.  Guilty.  Guilty.  It is so important not to assume that other people know what we are thinking.  Why take the chance of creating stress, having to redo things or simply making people feel bad.

Let’s communicate.  Let’s make sure we tell everything there is to tell.  Let’s ask if there are any questions.  Let’s make sure that the messages we think we are sending are in fact the same messages that the listeners are receiving.

After all, it is better to tell someone something two times than forget to tell them even once.

Filed Under: Happiness

Happiness blog

April 29, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Michele Moore of  The Happiness Habit is an interesting blogger.  What do I mean by “interesting”?

In modern times, this overused and trampled word is a void-filler.  Two people lost for words at a conference will say, “Whadaya think will happen?”  “Dunno.” “Should be interesting.”  “Yup, should be interesting.” “Yup, interesting all right.”

The ancient Chinese had a curse: “May you live in interesting times.”

But when I say “interesting”, I actually mean “interesting”.  (Sorry to disappoint you.)  Her posts are refreshingly controversial and thought provoking.   Here are just a few examples:

It is this last one that most intrigues me, in Is Happiness for Everyone?, we see a mug shot of a smiling Steve Jobs glaring smugly at the title, as if he knows something we don’t.  The question Michele raises is not so much whether happiness is for everyone as much as whether the pursuit of happiness is for everyone.

“For some of us other things are more important than happiness… security, social significance, power, prominence, or perhaps creativity or making a lasting, important, indelible impact or contribution.”

People pursuing power or creativity, for example, are not necessarily unhappy.  The pursuit of these goals might be what makes them happy.  But the pursuit of happiness might not.  For others, the pursuit of happiness is everything.  But there is a catch for those pursuing power, creativity and even happiness; one person might be almost completely satisfied with his life chasing whatever he wants to chase, because his happiness is in the chase.  Another person might follow the exact same path, but be totally miserable, because his happiness is in the “if only” that he will never catch.  If only I had power.  If only I could be a little more creative.  If only I could achieve this, I will be happy.

If only’s never make a person happy.  Enjoying the journey, the pursuit of power, the drive for creativity, the gathering of happiness; these are the motors that drive our happiness.

Filed Under: Happiness

Self-help for My Head

April 24, 2008 by Leave a Comment

You might have a funny spot on your head. Or you might have a funny spot in your head. Different types of spots, true…but both could use an occasional tune-up.

Do you have a funny spot?  I do.  It’s on my head.  Sometimes it pops up a week after getting my hair cut.  Sometimes two, or even three weeks later.  And it seems that each time it pops up a little differently.  More than anything, my funny spot dictates when I get a hair cut.

Most of us have funny spots in our personalities, too.  Certain things might rub us the wrong way.  Or in certain situations we might become suddenly shy or clumsy after a while.

Just as my hair needs maintenance to help manage that funny spot, we all need personality maintenance, which we often call self-help.  We need to know what characteristics about ourselves look “funny” or somehow interfere with smooth relationships with others.  And we need to take regular measures to manage those elements.  Chances are, these are not things we can eliminate (although some might be), but simply to keep a check on them so that they allow us to be pleasant to others and function at our best in our community.

Consider this: you give your car regular maintenance, don’t you?  And you are at least as valuable as your car, right?  And you are much more complicated than you car, aren’t you?  And you you don’t even come with an instruction manual, do you?

So make sure to keep you as well tuned as your car.

P.S.  I once had an even funnier spot on my head…

The Eek! hairdo

This post first appeared in A Daily Dose of Happiness newsletter

Filed Under: Happiness

A Poster Girl for What?

April 18, 2008 by 1 Comment

When Chloe Marshall, a plus-size model, was named Miss England, it caused a storm of controversy.  Why?  No, seriously, why?

What on earth is this rubbish?

A role model for ordinary women? No, Miss England finalist is fat, lazy and a poster girl for ill health

So Chloe Marshall, a plus-size model, has been named runner up for Miss England. And the debate rages on. Is she fat? Well, she has a little extra fat on her body and she could use to lose it. How much extra you need to be labeled fat, I don’t know, but would you write it out about somebody in big letters in the newspaper. Shame on the Daily Mail and on writer Monica Grenfell.

Is Chloe lazy? You can bet your bottom dollar she is not. Nobody gets to be Miss England (or gets that close) without putting in a lot of effort…especially after failing the mandatory anorexia test!

Is she a poster girl for ill health? I’ll buy that one from a fitness/nutrition perspective, because she is overweight (with a BMI clearly exceeding healthy proportions), but only if her detractors concede that she is no more a poster girl for ill health than 99% of models who show young girls how glamorous it is to be anorexic. The fact is that both anorexia and obesity are dangers women face and both are worrisome. And the modeling industry vigorously promotes anorexia. So taken in isolation, Chloe might be a poster girl for ill health, but taken in the context of the modeling industry, she actually represents a faint glimmer of balance.

(post continues below photo)

Chloe Marshall

What short-sited observers like Monica Grenfell fail to recognize is that nutrition is not everything – that self-esteem and a healthy body image are also important. I do not think Chloe sends a message to young girls (or old girls, for that matter) that they should eat too much. No risk of that.

But in a world whose subtext is to be skinny to get ahead, Chloe is the poster girl for “even if you fail at what everyone else says you have to be, you can still go out and do what you want and even succeed!”

So whether you happen to be born too short or too tall, with wide bones or narrow. Whether you happen to have challenges keeping weight off or pimples off. Whatever physical traits you might have, beyond your control or simply challenging to control, do not let them stand in your way of pursuing your dreams and reaching your goals.  You are more than your packaging.

Go for it!

Filed Under: Fitness Tagged With: , , ,

Nutrition for Happiness

April 15, 2008 by 1 Comment

What are the world’s healthiest foods? Here is a good list, well organized to make it simple, and loaded with information for those who want the nitty gritty details.

I ran across this list of the world’s healthiest foods.  Of course, every list is subjective, but I like how this particular list is organized.

If you look carefully, the categories are actually in order. They don’t mix the foods from different categories and try to compare apples with…well…bologna, for example.  For instance, vegetables is the first category, whereas natural sweeteners are at the bottom.  Since half our plates are supposed to be vegetables, this makes sense.  If half our plates were sweeteners, I think I might be sick – very quickly.

And if you click on any of the 129 healthy foods, you get a very detailed explanation of why and how it is healthy.  I was surprised to see spices on the list, thinking they were just flavoring eaten in too small a quantity to really provide much health at all.  But I learned better.  I now know that I need just two teaspoons of cinnamon in my cake to get 10% of my daily intake of iron.  Of course, I would have to eat the whole cake (heh, heh).  But even a little cinnamon added to one’s diet helps with several minerals.

READ ALSO: My top ten food picks

Of course, the healthier we eat, the happier we feel, so get cooking with fresh, natural, home-made ingredients.

Healthy eating is an art form

Filed Under: Fitness Tagged With: , ,

Happiness is Gratitude for Safety

April 13, 2008 by 3 Comments

There might not be such thing as absolute safety, but our society isn’t constantly living in terror of the next attack. This we will (hopefully) never fully understand. Let us be grateful for that.

In a recent Daily Dose of Happiness I wrote:

SAFETY Having just read an article in Maclean’s called “Butchers and Monsters”, about how the Chinese government bullies the people in the territory it controls, I am reminded of how lucky I am to live where and when I do. I know most of our readers share that luck, but not all.It’s not just that this is a safe place, but also it is a safe time. Most people throughout history have had to live in the shadows of a bully ruler who could pretty much do whatever he chose with peasants in territory he controlled.  Most people throughout history have had to live in fear that a village or kingdom or principality nearby or farther away would invade, loot or otherwise destroy their village.Those of us with the good fortune to be living in times of peace in the land of people will never be able to truly understand how it is to live looking over your shoulder.  But let us be grateful that we will never truly understand. 

Run for your life!

This edition drew a number of interesting comments.  Some were political, such as whether Western media is reporting China with bias and opinions on illegal immigration, which are interesting topics but beside the point.  Others addressed the heart of the topic, essentially questioning the notion that we live in relatively fear-free times/place.  I would like to share a couple of them with you here.

You forget about those who live with sick and mean people. I look over my shoulder 24/7 where I live, for fear of being yelled at, evicted for the flip of a hat reason, chased down hallways… I’m 24 and going to school to better myself so I can leave. Sure, we live in a free country but not all of us live in a free home.

To which I replied…

That is true.  There is no escaping the various characteristics of individuals.  Still, consider that you can go to school.  In Afghanistan, women are still trying to get that simple right, and facing incalculable risks as a result, in many cases from within their own home, but also from death squads roaming the countryside hunting down women who dare to pose as humans.

Which resulted in…

Wow, well I guess you make a good point.. I have read about those women, and my heart breaks at the injustice of it. I do have a crappy home life, but it is true that I am not being killed for trying to better my situation — just put through the ringer in the process, is all. Thank you for the perspective.

Another response from a reader was this one.

Hello “The Happy Guy”I’m responding to your email because I really don’t believe in what you said below – that we here in Canada are all safe.  I think we tend to take that for granted.  I used to think that before 9/11 happened. The people who lost their lives during the 9/11 crisis thought they were safe too.  With our biggest ally at war right now, we never know who El-Qaida (sorry, I don’t know how to spell it) will hit next and how many people will die.

Yes, I agree that we are way better off than Chinese citizens and many other parts of the world, but are we truly safe?  Think about it. 

To which I replied…

There is no such thing as complete safety.  A comet could enter our atmosphere tomorrow and wipe out all life on earth.  The shock over 9/11 is testament to how safe we are, how we can sit back and relax and enjoy life without constant fear.  When something like this does happen, it’s such an aberration that, in addition to the sadness at the loss of life, there is a total shock that it could even happen here.  We really are blessed to be able to live day to day without much fear of being butchered, raped and pillaged, and that we can say pretty much whatever we wish and choose to do pretty much whatever we wish without being brutally assaulted by soldiers or guards for so-doing.

I hope this gives people some additional food for thought, as I believe appreciation is paramount for happiness.

Filed Under: Happiness

Happiness and Sadness

February 6, 2008 by 2 Comments

Happiness and sadness are twins. They walk hand in hand. We must learn to embrace each of them for what they are, to harness our inner happiness and to shake off our sadness when it is time.

happy and sadWhen you spend a lot of time talking about happiness, one can forget that sadness has value, too.  One thing I have always told people is that it is OK to mourn a loss. It is not just “normal”, but it is necessary.

What is not necessary is to remain in a rut of sadness and self-pity.  One needs to mourn, then push the sadness aside and get on with making the most of this wonderful world we live in.  The object of our mourning needs to be transformed from a sadly-missed part of our present to a wonderfully-remembered part of our past.

There is an interesting article on happiness versus sadness in Newsweek right now.  Interestingly, the article makes a case for happiness, but not too much of it over the long run.  Here is a quick excerpt:

On a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is extremely happy, 8s were more successful than 9s and 10s, getting more education and earning more. That probably reflects the fact that people who are somewhat discontent, but not so depressed as to be paralyzed, are more motivated to improve both their own lot (thus driving themselves to acquire more education and seek ever-more-challenging jobs) and the lot of their community (causing them to participate more in civic and political life). In contrast, people at the top of the jolliness charts feel no such urgency.

Of course, “successful” is an interesting word. The happiest people might just consider themselves to be more successful, having reached the most happiness possible.

Filed Under: Happiness Tagged With: ,

Happiness Tops at 20 and 70

February 3, 2008 by Leave a Comment

“Life begins at 40.”  Whoever started that urban legend must have been one grumpy dude.  The research shows that happiness is actually lowest in our 40’s.

Pity us 40-somethings.  We are are at the low dip of a U of happiness, according to the latest research.

In our 20s we feel there is a big prize to be gained and we rush out into the world gung-ho, conquistadors chasing the gold, explorers going where no-one has gone before.  The world is ours, nothing can go wrong, onward and upward.

In our 40s, we realize there is no prize, at least not for us.  Somebody else has already been where we thought no-one had gone before – to the prize table.  And the first prize they grabbed was a vacuum cleaner to suck up all the other prizes. We won’t be Prime Minister or star quarterback or super model or even just filthy rich. We are at that point where we reflect upon all our failures and why we didn’t make “something” of our lives.  Or, we are simply too busy juggling kids and mortgages and schedules and stress to even remember that we had a dream that we had once been sure we were going to fulfill.

In our 60s comes reflective wisdom, where we realize that the prize didn’t matter anyway, because that’s just not what life is all about.  While we were busy with the kids and the mortgages and juggling schedules, we actually were conquering life one day at a time.  We were living the dream.  We were truly living.  Yes, chasing after a dream is exciting and charges you up with energy – and that is a form of happiness – but the calm of reflection in later years also brings on happiness.

Too bad we have to pass through the valley of despair to conquer the other peak.

Happiest at 20 and 70

Read more about the study conducted at Warwick University and Dartmouth College here.

Filed Under: Happiness

Happiness is homeless

January 21, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Happiness is not about where you are. Whatever window you look through, you can find happiness…if it is happiness you are looking for.

Jeanne Malmgren tries to define happiness, but she finds it’s not that easy.  Her article raises some interesting questions about why certain countries rank higher in happiness than others.  But in the end, she answers her own questions: “But you and I both know that happiness isn’t really about where you are.”

Window of happiness

That’s right.  One time I thought I could never be happy if I could not see a tree outside my window.  I needed to see real life, a connection to Mother Nature.  But it was in our tiny downtown Toronto Condo, where all you could see from the window was concrete, glass and bricks (the Attorney General’s office, a coffee shop, some traffic lights), that I mapped out my own vision for happiness and wrote my book about it. You can believe it was not the view out the window that inspired me, but the view inside me and inside others I spent time with that did.

And wherever I went, I found myself there.  I was mobile (still am, thankfully) so my happiness followed me around like a shadow.  So did my frustrations, my love, my eccentricities, my desires and pretty much everything about me.  One shadow after another after another. So many shadows. So many shadows to choose from.

The same can be said for my friends and family and for all the strangers who passed in and out of my life each day.  Each carried happiness within.  Each carried love within.  Each carried fears and frustrations, desires and gratitude. Each was followed by shadow after shadow after shadow. All of these shadows are pretty much independent of location.

In real estate, it might be location, location, location. But when it comes to happiness, it is all about you, you, you.

By the way, about the title to this blog post…I did not say that homelessness is happiness.  🙂

Filed Under: Happiness Tagged With: ,
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