How to make a mess of your life

Three simple and easy steps to make a total mess of all things 

Repeat every day to stay in the cage of misery and clip your wings 

One:

Find two things to complain and rant about

Sometimes you could murmur, sometimes you could shout 

Two:

Find two topics and appropriate people to fight or argue with

Don't pause to think if you are pursuing the truth or chasing a myth

Three:

Find some faults in people or situations around you 

Elaborate and examine till the concerned blokes turn blue 

Tip:

Take as many of these aspects from the past as possible 

As the past guarantees you things that are no longer changeable 

Interested, Intelligent or Ignorant?

There are things (and times when) we constantly analyze, judge and evaluate; Categorize, take sides, conclude and declare. We are seen as keen participants; interested and perhaps intelligent. The inevitable consequence is to either cheat ourselves into believing that we knew it all or change with the climate a la a chameleon. Nothing really bad I guess - that is life as usual for so many of us because we are under constant pressure and have been conditioned to appear intelligent and interested.

On the other hand, there are times when we are nonchalant and 'matter-of-fact'ish about there being a hundred things we can't really know, a hundred and one things we know we don't know, a hundred and two things we don't know that we don't know. Something unknown sets us free and we decide to suspend judgment (and its sisters and brothers) and just be. Maybe there's a thought or two that makes a strong appeal to be adopted but it is kindly dismissed after an internal struggle. These are the times when we manage to simply observe and trace things with an open, un-argumentative and un-excited mind. It doesn't bother us that we appear not to exist or appear to be ignorant. Such moments are liberating. If we do not let thoughts from outside infiltrate our so-called ignorance.

Tidbits

There is surely a STRONG link between childhood memories & happiness as an adult. Re-experiencing things that once gave you comfort perhaps reconnects the nodes in your brain to bring you deja vu Happiness.

(Think of that nice song you heard plenty of times as a kid. The walk you had with Grandma in your village. The movie you watched with cousins and laughed your head off. I am sure this is the case even with the not-so-nice memories. Childhood experiences are so so critical.)

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We must invent a body sensor+audio device that'll boom out a context-sensitive quote or two when one begins to get angry. :-)

Imagine: You are about to scream at someone because they are slow on the uptake and this device immediately says in a deep and strong voice "Be kind to everyone - Dalai Lama" or something to that effect.

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What fills the huge gap between education and attitude or behavior? The gap that we rarely fill......! Inspiration, introspection, insight AND extreme effort! Sigh. E.x.t.r.e.m.e E.f.f.o.r.t indeed.

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Life sometimes delivers gifts that seem wonderful until you spot the hidden price tag that it has forgotten to remove......and your attention shifts elsewhere. ;-) 

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Simplicity is not how easy it is for the TECHIES to IMPLEMENT the solution! It is how easy it is for the USER to understand and USE the solution! A TV may have a million circuits embedded inside it, but at the end of the day, the knobs outside must be just enough and easy to operate. 

Bliss & Learning

I wonder if there is any other cartoonist on Earth who can say it so well. :-) Three cheers to short-term stupid self-interest. None of us need to be trained on that. 

Happy-Busy-Ask

Courtesy: FB Share

Coincidence

Revisited one of my previous posts on Happiness and believe (and I thought so immediately after reading the paper as well) that Dan Pink's extremely popular talk on Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose (being presented as the foundation for performance, motivation and success) seems to have an uncanny resemblance to this research study. Wait, I'm not suggesting anything.....just saying that it is an interesting coincidence! :-)  


But the one notable difference is that while Men who participated in the research said (mostly) Autonomy along with Mastery and Purpose were important, Women said (mostly) Meaningful Relationships were more important than Autonomy (with Mastery and Purpose being constant). Hmm. 

Know Thyself

Just been reading this fascinating research paper (thanks to Zephy for the pointer). 

Know Thyself and Become What You Are: A Eudaimonic Approach to Psychological Well-Being by Carol D. Ryff and Burton H. Singer.

The paper isn't really as intimidating and esoteric as you might imagine it to be at first (based on the Title). Once I started reading it, I was excited and wanted to read on till the end.   

The paper explores and studies various thought-leaders' writings on the highest human good which, according to the authors, Aristotle equated to happiness (activity of the soul in accordance with virtue). The authors go on to say virtue may be different for different people but Aristotle thought it was be the ability to be intermediate (moderated behaviour). Virtue, he stated, "is the state of character concerned with choice in which deliberate actions are taken to avoid excess or deficiency". (Nice....reminds me of Buddhist principles)

Extracts: 

"The excellence of the human being is thus going to be associated with growth towards some final realization of his or her true and best nature"

"For (Bertrand) Russell, happiness depended most importantly on 'zest', by which he meant having active interest and engagement in life, and by 'affection', by which he meant having meaningful bonds of love with significant others."

"Eudaimonic well-being is linked with better neuroendocrine regulation, better immune function, lower cardiovascular risk, better sleep and more adaptive neural circuitry" 

The authors find that the three key things in life that helps people be genuinely happy are Personal Growth, Purpose in life and Positive relations with significant others. The interesting thing is that women rate positive relations higher on the happiness scale while men replace that with autonomy. Two other contributors to the happiness recipe are, understandably, self-acceptance and environmental mastery.

Lots of food for thought in the paper!