Self-Help Happiness Blog

I’ll let the video speak for itself…

A father and his son, a young adult, were driving to the cottage. The father was worried, because his son had fallen into companionship with people who might lead him astray, and he was trying to help his son see that it was time for him to take his life a little more seriously.

“Aw, dad, I know you mean well, and I know I’m not really doing you proud, but I like to party. I’ll get on the right track some day. I don’t need to worry.”

They drove a little further, when suddenly the son said, “Hey dad, that was the turnoff for the cottage. You missed the turnoff.”

“I know,” said the father. “I think I’ll just keep driving this way for a while. I can always go back later to take the right road.”

A few more minutes – and a couple turnoffs – passed. The son began to think of the swimming he would miss if they arrived too late. “Dad, the farther you go down this road, the longer it will take to get back.”

The father replied, “That’s true. The further you go down the wrong track, the harder it is to get back. So when were you thinking of turning your life around to head down the right track?”

Where do you want to go? What do you want out of life? Most importantly, what are you waiting for?

Your neighbor’s vision is as true for him as your own vision is true for you.”

Miguel de Unamuno makes us think a bit about our natural self-righteousness. We tend to think that our visions are “truth”.

Truth is that when a rock hits your head, the skull cracks open. Vision is that hitting a rock against a head is wrong, because it is killing.

Yes, read that again. That is vision, not truth. In fact, most people accept that killing is right in some instances. Such as killing fellow creatures to eat them. Or killing tyrants who torture or kill others. We kill in war and sometimes as punishment. Some people agree with these actions; some disagree. That is because people have different visions.

We don’t have to agree with other people’s visions, but if we want to get along without a whole lot more killing, it sure would help if we respected other people’s visions a little more than we do now.

In our continuing support of the 12 for 12K Challenge, we are pleased to share with you the februrary charity, which is Stop the Silence. 

It is estimated that about 150 million girls and 75 million boys are vicitims of sexual abuse, and that the majority of all sexual abuse victims are girls who are minors.  Pretty scary.

Here is a short video about Stop The Silence…

(If the video does not appear, click here.)

Note: When using the ChipIn widget to make your donation, the email on the front page will be the main 12for12k Charities one. However, your payment does go directly to Stop the Silence and your PayPal or Credit Card receipt will show this.

I am copying this straight from a pass-around email I received recently.  It’s good, so I thought I would share it with you.

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip. You don’t have to actually answer the questions.Just read the e-mail straight through, and you’ll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of Miss America .

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten.
Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here’s another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care.

I mentioned a while ago that we are supporting the 12 for 12K Challenge, a charitable campaign launched through social media.  Each month in 2009, a new charity will be selected, and we are asking you to consider a small donation ($10, but feel free to give more if the spirit moves you).

The first charity, for January 2009, is War Child.  Why?  There is a good piece where Danny Brown puts the value of $10 in perspective. 

Here is a quick overview of the War Child Charity:

…and below is a video of Little Lady and Little Sister protesting against poverty.  In truth, they did this 100% spontaneously the first time, but I did not have a camera handy then.  So this is actually a “re-enactment” video.  Note that the banner reading “PlYSE” is supposed to read “Please” (not bad for a 7-year old learning to write in French), as in PlYSE support the 12 for 12K Challenge.

YouTube is not embedding this correctly, so here is the direct link to the video: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ajimCKvI6-E

I’ve just sent my $10 donation; why not send yours now?

“narge”. What is narge? Well, it just happens to be how both many
daughters pronounced “orange” for the first couple years of talking.
(OK, one of them is still in those first couple years).

What is so hard about the word “orange”. Even when broken down
repeatedly into three sounds - O RAN J - they still can’t pronounce
it.

Don’t make assumptions about what anybody can or cannot do. What
seems simple to one person might be beyond hope for others.

I do search engine optimization for a living. What do you mean you
can’t do it? It’s easy. I’ll bet there are things you do daily that
would send me into knots trying to figure out, too. It’s a good thing,
too. After all, where would we be if all of us were experts at
gardening and none of us were experts at plumbing?

 This inspiration was first published in A Daily Dose of Happiness two years ago.

A paragraph in National Geographic Adventure caught my attention.  This is a tale of leaving the Big Apple to carve out a life in very rural - and isolated - Vermont.

At night, lying in bed with the windows open and ticking off our list of problems, we’d hear a barred owl hooting –”Who cooks for you?”–and be struck by the small scale of our worries. Were we to fade away, Cathy said, that owl would be here anyway, keeping someone else awake with its questioning call, questioning nothing.

Yes, our problems are pretty small.  They just seem big because they are happening to us.  Sometimes it takes the big wide world to put our challenges into perspective.

Over at the Accumulating Peripherals blog, there is a discussion on the pros and cons of happiness research.  Matt offers explains his beef with happiness research and I have commented also on the discussion.

Much of the happiness research out there is based on self reporting.  In other words, it asks you if you feel happy.  OK, so the questions are more complex, but it basically asks for your opinion.  On the one hand, that is poor science, because our perceptions of things are rarely accurate.  A good example is how a couple high-profile crimes can get a city or even a whole country talking about how the crime rate is on the rise and it’s about time we stop the growing menace — even while statistics show that year after year the crime rate has slowly been declining.

On the other hand, happiness is a subjective thing.  It is something we feel, and it could be argued that the only valid measurement of happiness is our perception of it.  Please feel free to go over to Matt’s blog and comment.  And then please come back here and comment, too.

Stand on your head.

You think I’m kidding, don’t you? No, I’m not…go ahead and stand on your head. If this poses physical difficulties, try lying down sideways in your office or in your kitchen.

Spend some time looking at things from a fresh perspective. And, yes, I mean that literally, because the more often we do this, the better we train our brains to be able to approach problems, challenges and opportunities also from fresh angles.

Want to be better able to solve problems and respond to new situations? Train your brain.

 This is taken from a recent edition of A Daily Dose of Happiness.