Self-Help Happiness Blog

Happiness can be found wherever you look for it.  For instance, in the Dancer from Khiva.  This is a Russian book, translated into English, about Bibish, who was kidnapped and driven out to the desert to be gang-raped…and life rolls on from there with all the consequences, such as never being able to be married as a result (but she does).  And never being able to dance because dancing is frowned upon in her village (but you know the title of the book!)

There si a more complete review of the book here, but they message for you today is that we all are driven down the road of circumstance, but we all have the option of turning the steering wheel.  Yes, some things happen that really suck.  It is up to you to decide just how badly they will suck and how happy you will choose to be, despite circumstances.

Lloyd Garver of the Norwich Bulletin is obviously not a big fan of happiness books, but at least he refers to mine as… ”Some of these popular happy books include, ‘Climb your Stairway to Heaven: The 9 Habits of Maximum Happiness’“.

The problem with Mr. Garver is probably not so much his grumpiness, but his poor sense of direction.  See what else he says, “The reason you can’t find the kind of book you’re looking for is that all the self-help books about how to be happy fill up the shelves. Ironically, this makes some of us quite unhappy.”

Fortunately for us and for the sake of clarity, he does specify what kind of book you’re looking for.  A real book.  Hey, those are his words, not mine.

If books about happiness and self-help are not what he is looking for, why is he looking in the self-help section?  I have to assume he is simply lost, because obviously he won’t find any real books there.  Either that, or he is a very grumpy man with a great sense of theatrics (not to mention irony).  And nothing makes a grumpy person grumpier than a happy person saying to him, “Smile!”  (Yes, grumpy people really, really hate happy photographers!)

If the bookstores would kindly provide visitors with maps when they enter the store, people who don’t want to be happy can avoid accidentally finding themselves surrounded by all those threatening smiley faces.  And they can get on with the business of finding “real books”, which apparently bookstores don’t seem to stock anymore.

That oughta solve the problem.

Hmm…I wonder what he would think of a happiness blog. 

Yes, it’s official.  People with strong literacy skills are happier than those who struggle with reading.  But I didn’t have to tell you that, right?

A study by the National Literacy Trust shows that men and women alike are less likely to marry, less likely to own a home, more likely to live still with their parents and less likely to feel satisfied with life if they can’t read.

Of course, you always have to be careful, because statistics can say pretty much whatever you want.  Lower literacy means a lower paying job in most cases, which might in turn explain the findings.  Or lower levels of happiness in certain people might lead then to read less and learn less.  Cause and effect are not always easy to establish. 

That being said, literacy facilitates so much that a focus on increasing a person’s literacy should help them in many facets of their lives, most likely also in their happiness (being able to read is very empowering).

And if literacy in one language is empowering, what about literacy in several?  

For those interested in reading the report in its entirety:
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Research/literacy_changes_lives.html

Today’s Los Angeles Times has a feature on happiness, my favorite topic.  The feature helps debunk a lot of myths, mostly that things and circumstances make us happy, sad, angry or whatever.  Here is the paragraph that most people should read:

Lyubomirsky and her colleagues analyzed studies on identical twins and other research and came to the conclusion that happiness is 50% genetic, 40% intentional and 10% circumstantial. “Half of your predisposition toward happiness you can’t change,” she says. “It’s in your genes. Your circumstances — where you live, your health, your work, your marriage — can be tough to change. But most people are surprised that circumstances don’t account for as much of their happiness as they think.”

Just for the record, there really is not an accurate way to measure happiness, because ti is such a subjective issue.  However, a 50-50 divide between genetics and environment is generally considered a good rough estimate by more happiness researchers.  Depending on the effort you make or do not make, I am sure that number is very elastic, but let’s play with that number for now. 

The L.A. Times feature continues on other pages, too.  For instance, there is an excellent list of handy tips for “cultivating happiness” .

 Happy reading.

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.

There are some people who pooh pooh self-help books, and perhaps it is true that for them reading is not the ideal way to make improvements.  Perhaps some of them don’t think they need to improve, so I won’t argue with “perfect” people (Who could win an arguement with a perfect person, anyway?)

I came across this interview with writer-director Judd Apatow, commenting on his first time as a producer and how he learned to manage teams:

The first job I had was creating The Ben Stiller Show.  I was 24 and had no idea what I was doing, so I read all these Stephen Covey books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  They are actually really good!  I haven’t read them since, but I have to say, all the answers were in there.” 

The May / June edition of No Limits Magazine features a story by somebody I know well…me!  It came as a surprise, but it was arranged by my Australian publisher, where you can pick up a copy of 9 Habits of Happiness if you live in Australia or in New Zealand.

The story, by the way, is one of my favorites from a few years back, when we ran into some unexpected adversity on what should have been a highlight of our honeymoon…and how we turned things around (so it ended up being a highlight of our honeymoon, despite the Wicked Witch Stella!).

The story is just one of many tales I weaved into the book. 

The third annual World Conference on Gross National Happiness has just finished a couple months ago, and I just came across this interesting report on the conference.  I like this article, contrasting Western and Eastern values.  I can also refer you to a somewhate dated but much more detailed NY Times article on the topic. 

Here is a map of Gross National Happiness among nations:

Gross National Happiness Map

Maclean’s Magazine, November 5 – one of the cover stories is:

Why Men Are Getting Happier (and women more miserable)

The article reviews how the changing roles of women and men in western society are leading to happier men and less happy women.  Just for the record, yes I did choose to stay at home with our kids, no I did not bum around, yes I did build a business from home, and yes both my wife and I share in the joys and stresses of balancing two kids and two careers.

*  Maclean’s is Canada’s national news magazine, and should be available at pretty much any major library in the world.