Posts Tagged ‘Happiness’
Friday, August 13th, 2010
Last night I took the opportunity to watch the meteor shower. It was a very cool experience, something that I will definitely do again next time. Being under the bright starry sky, watching rocks burn up as they travel through the Earth’s atmosphere just reminded me how tiny and insignificant humans are in the grand scheme of things. How arrogant it is to think that all that was ‘created’ for us to enjoy?! We are such a tiny spec of existence that the Universe wouldn’t even know if we were gone.
Trying to picture all that space, those astronomically huge distances, and how most of it is emptiness gives my brain a cramp. It’s not easy to imagine infinity. I can see how people develop fascination with the sky. It is so beautiful and so surreal that it is highly intoxicating. And today, most people will never experience this. People clump together in cities that are full of bright lights that make it impossible to see the sky at its full glory. And let’s be honest, how many of us leave our cities far enough to escape the lights of the civilization? Very few do it on the regular basis. Most hardly leave at all.
Until Monday,
V
Tags: Happiness, Human Behavior, Inspiration, Meditation, Universe
Posted in Universe | No Comments »
Friday, August 6th, 2010
I have a poster in my room at my parents’ house that has a bunch of really good quotes about life. Some are better than others, but a few are truly striking. There is one in particular that I find really thought-provoking. It is by Paul Bowles, who was an American composer and author.
“Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
And on that note…until Monday.
V
Tags: Happiness, Human Behavior, Inspiration
Posted in Psychology | No Comments »
Friday, July 30th, 2010
One time, early in my entrepreneurial days, I was dealing with a rather difficult and demanding customer. I was in a rush and happened to write an email that was straight to the point. There was nothing particularly wrong with it – it wasn’t offensive or anything – but it did not have the usual pleasantry fluff. She lost it at that point and showered me with a number of ‘compliments’, but there was one thing in particular that stood out and served me as a very good lesson in further communication with all clients (and people). She said that “you’ll attract more bees with honey than vinegar.” How true!
Scolding or lecturing people rarely works, and I would go so far as to say that it never works. People can’t stand criticism and rarely see themselves at fault anyway. We always justify our actions to ourselves and to others and find excuses to feel OK about them. Fighting this is to go against human nature, which always a losing affair. Instead, it is much more effective to find more constructive and positive ways to deal with people.
In other words, be nice! And enjoy the long weekend!
Until Tuesday,
V
Tags: Communication, Happiness, Human Behavior, Relationships, Success
Posted in Psychology, Relationships, Success | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
“Education is the ability to meet life’s situations.”
- John Hibben
What an elegant way to put it, don’t you think? For quite some time I had a misconception that it is the grades, diplomas, degrees, and your IQ that determined your level of education and predicted your level of success in life. I don’t believe that anymore; in fact, that is probably pretty far away from the truth.
I said several times before that knowledge by itself is rather useless. The application of knowledge is powerful. But it’s rare that the challenges life presents us with have a lot to do with our formal education. Most of the time, at least in my experience, I have to deal with things not related to Engineering. We do well when we are able to deal with, and overcome those challenges, and that is true ‘education’.
Until next time,
V
Tags: Communication, Happiness, Human Behavior, Personal Power, Relationships, Success
Posted in Psychology, Relationships, Success | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
A couple of days ago I read about a study, done at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, that found post break-up symptoms similar to those of a cocaine withdrawal. No wonder people sometimes do crazy stuff after a break-up in an attempt to get the other person ‘back’. I guess the key is to be emotionally invested in the relationship; if one is happy that a relationship is over, this probably does not apply.
Now I wonder, does this also apply to non-romantic relationships? And how about family members, when they pass on, for instance?
Until next time,
V
Tags: Break-up, Cocaine, Drugs, Happiness, Human Behavior, Marriage, Relationships
Posted in Psychology, Relationships | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
The other day I had a casual conversation with someone and we got talking about some of our past experiences. The conversation transitioned to the recall of some times when we were really challenged – training really hard with a team, going on few hours of sleep during certain school times, etc. I noticed that even though these experiences are not something that I want to go through again, I am still glad that I had them. It was a similar story for my friend. Then I started to recall other conversations that I had with people over the years, and if my memory serves me well, most people did not regret having their experiences, but they would not necessarily want to have them again. A similar theme emerges from interviews with some very successful people – they are glad they did what they did, but now knowing what it takes, would not eagerly do it over again.
Does anyone know what psychological mechanism is at work here?
It’s fascinating – we are glad that we had the experience, but would not want to go through it again. Well, if you like the outcome, why not go through the experience again? When I think about it, the main reason I would not want to go through the experience over again, is because I know what it takes. But then I’m glad that I had the experience because it now contributes to who I am as a person.
If you have any thoughts you’d like to share, please do so.
Until next time,
V
Tags: Happiness, Human Behavior, Irrational Behavior
Posted in Psychology, Success | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
Most of you have probably been in the situation when a romantic relationship comes to an end and you, or your ex, says something along the lines of “Let’s be friends!” Whether it comes out of guilt, or possibly the desire to be close in order to re-kindle the relationship in the future, or something else entirely different, people often try to be friends after the relationship goes to the pooper. Now let’s define ‘friendship’ as well here. By ‘friendship’, I do not mean that the two people are civil when they run into each other on the street or at some New Year’s Party; being civil is easy as long as the break-up was civil. What I mean by ‘friendship’ is when the two people actually continue to be friends and hang out, share stories, call each other, etc.
I personally have never been able to maintain a friendship with an ex. Frankly, I never really wanted to in the first place, so that’s not very surprising. However, I have seen people maintain a friendship for some time. I’m can’t speak to the quality of that friendship – it was probably different – but people still hung out and spent time together, so they were definitely more than just ‘being civil’.
So I wonder, what makes it possible to maintain that friendship? My theory is that the probability of having a post-break-up friendship is negatively correlated to how hurt/upset the people are due to the break-up. The more emotionally invested one is in the relationship and the more hurt one is when the relationship ends, the less likely the friendship is. What are your thoughts? I’d be very curious to hear what people who have been able to maintain a friendship after a break-up think.
Until next time,
V
Tags: Happiness, Human Behavior, Relationships
Posted in Psychology, Relationships | 1 Comment »
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
Or are some things just plain annoying/frustration/offensive/hurtful/etc? On one hand I understand that nothing is good or bad, kind or insulting, gentle or hurtful, or anything else, except that our thinking makes it so. An event is just an event – our thoughts about that event define how we interpret that event. A rainy day can be looked at with disappointment or it can be looked at with ease and appreciation for the freshness that it brings.
While the logic makes sense and I agree more with that line of thinking than I disagree with it, I still feel that there are exceptions. But how can there be exceptions when we are dealing with a Principle? Maybe it is like a language, where there are rules and then there are exceptions to those rules? Anyway, welcome to my head – this gives you a 3 second preview.
For instance, if someone punches you in the face while you are walking down the street and minding your own business, you’d have to work pretty darn hard to convince yourself that it was a nice experience to go through (maybe if you are in the UFC ring, you’d enjoy a punch in the face – I don’t know). And that is exactly what I think you’d have to do – convince yourself that it was a positive experience, because I believe that that experience is just plain negative.
What I’d like to find out from you is whether or not you feel there are certain things that are just positive or just negative (for the sake of generalizing these categories)? Or is everything just our interpretation of it – always?
Until next time,
V
Tags: Happiness, Human Behavior, Personal Power
Posted in Psychology | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
There is another Gottman nugget that I thought would be interesting to share with you concerning relationships. This time it is on the golden ratio of positive to negative phrases expressed in an interaction between two people, and that ratio is 5:1. The idea is that you need to say (and hear) at least 5 positive comments to every negative comment for a relationship to work well. Turns out this is a very important parameter and a good predictor of relationship’s ultimate success or failure.
In his research Gottman found that it is not whether the couples fight or not, not how much they fight or how often they fight, and not even the intensity of their fights, but rather that ratio of positive feedback to negative feedback that ultimately makes the difference. So wait, to make a relationship work, just say 5 positive things for every negative thing (and avoid contempt)? Seems like it! I love when something as complex as a relationship between two people can be boiled down to one or two simple, measurable factors. Amazing!
Until next time,
V
Tags: Communication, Divorce, Gottman, Happiness, Human Behavior, Marriage, Relationships
Posted in Psychology, Relationships | 2 Comments »
Thursday, May 6th, 2010
Whatever way you spin it, at the end of the day it is fear that prevents you from doing something new and keeps you stuck in doing the same things that you are used to – time after time after time. People say a lot of things about fear, like how it is ‘False Evidence that Appears Real’, but I’m not going to get into that now. What I’d rather draw your attention to is to the fact things are never as bad as you fear and the effects are rarely permanent. More often than not, what you fear is a lot less scary and does not even have a lasting effect on you.
Studies on happiness show that people return to their usual level of happiness after about 1 month in 90+% of cases. With other things, like winning a lottery or losing the ability to use your legs (see Dan Gilbert’s talk on happiness on TED), people still return to their normal level of happiness, it just takes a little longer (and losing use of your legs is a permanent thing).
Essentially we always find a way back to our point of happiness equilibrium, so if you don’t take a risk because you fear some ugly outcome that will ruin the rest of your life, just know that it is not so – you’ll be back to your regular self soon enough.
Until next time,
V
Tags: Action, Dan Gilbert, Fear, Happiness, Human Behavior, Personal Power, Success
Posted in Psychology, Success, Taking Action | 5 Comments »