Martini Musing - That Happiness Thing (Again)
I’m currently reading Happier, by Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D. It came out of a class he teaches at Harvard. Seems a lot students do in fact want to be happier - so they’re flocking to his positive psychology course. (He swears it’s not an “easy A.”) Of course, being Harvard and Ben-Shahar being a prof - the book is a wee bit academic. But it’s also filled with downright good sense.
Even though I think I already know and live a lot of his points (Happiness is indeed a choice for many of us. Money in and of itself doesn’t make anybody any happier, etc.) - the book has some great “whack in the head’ points and some excellent ideas for those of us who are continuing to work on our souls and perspective. Here’s something I’m using - sentence stems. I do these during my morning coffee zen time (after I’ve downed the first cup, watched the clouds roll by and the brain starts functioning.)
So, try these - don’t think about it - just complete the sentences as many times as you like. See what happens:
If I bring 5% more awareness to my life…
The things that make me happy are…
To bring 5% more happiness to my life…
If I take more responsibility for fulfilling my wants…
If I bring 5% more integrity to my life…
Note that Ben-Sharar’s definition of happiness includes “an overall experience of pleasure and meaning.” It comes from satisfaction “if you feel, from within, that you are doing things that challenge you, things that use you fully and well.”
This doesn’t mean that we will always be doing a Snoopy Happy Dance or should even want to (the issue I’ve always had with the gazillion pop psych “feel-good, I deserve everything and shouldn’t have to work for it” books). As I think of it, “I love my life - I just don’t like it much sometimes.” If you’re a responsible grown-up that has to pay the bills - well, you’re going to have to do mundane, boring stuff sometimes.
For more on this in relation to women in biz and marketing to women, read my guest post, Is No The New Yes? over at Lip-Sticking.
Happy Friday! I’ve got to go do some mundane work I don’t really like…but I can also look out my window at the mountains while I’m doing it.
Tags: Friday martini time, Mary Schmidt, happiness
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