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Imagine that you are reading a book. It is a a great read, a murder mystery. You are near the end of the book and it is nearly evening. You know that the murderer will be revealed somewhere towards the last page. A friend walks by:
“The butler did it,” he casually remarks.
You throw the book down in disgust and shout angrily at your friend.
“You’ve spoilt the book for me by revealing the murderer.” You storm off.
Later, I ask you if you are happy and you reply no.
Here’s another version of the story: Read more
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There are a lot of miserable people in this world and there is a vast industry to help them:
- An army of therapists
- Libraries of self-help books
- Self development and motivational speakers
- Psychics
- Agony aunts
- Prozac and other drugs
Anyone can set themselves up as an expert on curing human misery. Most of these people are papering emotional cracks, putting plasters on mental wounds. Few really go into the very nature of the mind and how we get miserable in the first place. They may claim to do this by going back into childhood stuff, your relationship to your parents and your siblings. Of course, if you were regularly beaten by your parents, then you are probably fairly miserable now, so there is some merit in re-visiting childhood trauma.
How far do you want to go back? What caused your father to beat you up? Did his father beat him up? What about his grandparents and his great grand parents. When did this cycle of abuse begin? Read more
I’ve just finished reading Smile or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich. The book is a critique of positive thinking and positive psychology and how it has infiltrated American life in such a way to become a negative force.
What’s wrong with having positive thoughts? Well, obviously most of the time it’s OK to think positively but taken to a fundamental level, as has often been the case, then positive thinking is not always realistic thinking. Barbara makes a case for positive thinking being a large factor in the recent collapse of the banking system. Many people were making money from the sub prime mortgage market in which money to buy housing was given to the less well off. These mortgage debts were then sold on in the form of financial securities to people who saw vast amounts of profits to be made from them .
A few individuals saw that there was a basic flaw in the prime mortgage market. The system relied on house prices always going up. If a low paid worker could not keep up with the payments, they could always release some funds by re-mortgaging to finance the payments. But what happens if house prices start falling?
People who voiced these concerns were not listened to. They were accused of being too negative, and in a banking culture where positive thinking was the order of the day, negative thought was not to be listened to.
Of course the ‘negative’ people were right, and when house prices started to fall, the whole banking house of cards began to collapse, resulting in the failure of the banking system.
If positive thinking and positive psychology can have such devastating effect, then how are we to proceed? What is needed is realistic rather than positive thinking alone. What is realistic thinking? Read more
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I used to do some work for a business that taught massage therapists a new approach to bodywork. Using new techniques they became better therapists and this benefitted their clients who received deeper and more healing bodywork. The office of this company had a large board that was filled with glowing testimonials to how great the training courses were.
Everyone associated with the company was encouraged to think positively, always aware of the great things that the company stood for. The more massages people received using their approach, the more the world would improve. We were on a mission to help the world! Read more
I was looking at my doctor’s website yesterday and in particular the statistics on what they have treated. Ten per cent of patients are treated for depression. How many more people are not yet at the stage of clinical depression, but are very unhappy?
Are you happy? If not, what can you do about it. Positive psychology believes that it has the answer to happiness. Research has shown that 40% of happiness is under your conscious control. The other 60% is due to our circumstances, where you live, the family that you are bought up in and so on.
Happiness has two main components. You can asses yours by asking yourself the following questions:
- How satisfied are you overall with your life and are you progressing in your life goals?
- How often do you feel positive emotions and how often do you feel negative emotions?
Do you worry too much?
I was bought up in a house called ‘Wywurri”. I’m not sure where the name came from – it could have been named after a group of granite rocks in the Maryamma distriuct of Australia also know as Wywurri.
If I ever get around to writing my autobiography it will be called Wywurri, as this is a principle by which I lead my life. Why worry?
I used to worry about a lot of things:
- My bank account which was never full enough.
- My relationships which always on the brink of ending
- My job which was never quite right for me
- My body which was never light enough
Do you dwell on your problems. There is productive worry and unproductive worry.
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Can You Predict Positive Personality Traits?
One positive personality trait that we all want is happiness. You think that it would be easy to predict what makes you happy and what you need in your life in order to feel more positive.
One of the problems is one of expectation. I once was invited to attend a birthday meal at a a new restaurant. The woman whose birthday it was was incredibly excited about the prospect of going for a Thai meal with her friends.
We got there and it was a very good restaurant. The birthday woman ordered a meal which had a Thai name. Her smile faded when she took the first mouth full. The dish was heavily flavoured with hot chili, and she hated chili (most Thai food features chili!)
For her the evening was spoilt. I, on the the other hand who loves chili, had a great time eating good food and being with friends.
The problem with my friend was that she had huge expectations about the meal and how happy it would make her – and these expectations were not met.
Can you predict how happy you would be?
As more and more firms are closing down in this recession, many find themselves out of a job. This is when a positive attitude makes all the difference.
I used to work in a hotel and also lived there in the staff quarters, so when I was made redundant I was both out of work and homeless which was quite traumatic. This happened on the day before I was due to go on holiday to India.
What I found is that a positive attitude really helped me. I looked at my situation in a positive way. The first thing I did was extend my holiday from a month to three months. This resulted in my being able to go on a trip to meet the Dalai Lama which is one of my most treasured memories. This certainly would not have happened if I had stuck to my original plan to stay for 4 weeks.
My stay also allowed me to reflect on my life and look at the future as a fresh start, a new beginning.
If you have lost your job recently, you may not have the opportunity to go away for 3 months like me but there are several advantages to having a positive attitude which can help you get a new job.
These are some of the advantages that people with a positive attitude have when looking for a job: Read more
I once saw a documentary about the Ayatollah Khomeini.
In the course of the one hour documentary things I noticed about the Ayatollah were:
- He did not smile once
- He did not laugh once.
- He was unmarried
He landed in Iran where a large crowd greeted their new religious and political leader. He looked at them and still looked miserable. I do not trust a political or religious leader who never smiles.
Now, contrast this with Barack Obama who:
- smiles a lot
- laughs
- has a happy marriage
- looks happy
It is not possible to find happiness unless you have a sense of humor.
Is there a link between humor and a successful relationship? If you want a long-lasting and loving relationship, do you look for someone with a sense of humor?
Is the pursuit of perfect how to find happiness?
In a new book, The Pursuit Of Perfect, Ben-Shahar identifies two ways of living, whose distinct patterns of behavior provide an important key to our understanding of success and self-fulfillment. They are the Perfectionist and the Optimalist, and there’s a little bit of both in you and me . . .
I once worked for a company whoose CEO was a perfectionist. He regarded excellence as not good enough. Perfection was what was expected. This resulted in many projects taking ten times as long as they needed to be as we became bogged down in the minute details in order to create this state of perfection. I came to the view that the insistence on perfection was holding back the growth of the company.
Employees lived in fear that their work, though excellent, was judged not good enough because it failed the test of perfection.
So what is the difference between an optimalist and a perfectionist and do any of them give a clue on how to find happiness?
Positive Relaxation
Would you like some practical tips for practising Positive Psychology?
I once had a friend whose view on life was very negative. I telephoned her and asked how she was. She replied that she was off sick for a week due to the trauma she felt on discovering that her car had been vandalised.
She was unable to see the positive side to situations because her reactions to events were ruled by negative emotions – and often these emotions literally made her feel ill and take to her bed. I wish at that time I had known about Positive Psychology and how its findings could have been used to help her.
A new report from Harvard Medical School. Positive Psychology: Harnessing the Power of Happiness, Personal Strength, and Mindfulness describes many of the concepts of Positive Psychology and teaches how to put positive emotions to work in your life.
Here is a summary of the report:
“Positive emotions have been linked with better health, longer life, and greater well being in numerous scientific studies. On the other hand, chronic anger, worry, and hostility increase the risk of developing heart disease, as people react to these feelings with raised blood pressure and stiffening blood vessels. A Harvard School of Public Health study found that people who are generally hopeful were less likely to develop hypertension, diabetes, or respiratory tract infection than those who were less hopeful.
- Using the positive in your life
- Finding and using your inner character strengths
- Achieving the “flow” experience
- Putting mindfulness to use toward well being
- Developing gratitude
- Savoring pleasure
- Achieving flow experience
- Finding the meaningful live”
How do you start to practice Positive Psychology?
There may be a selfish gene in all of us which compels us to act out of self interest. Is this incompatible with self development?
When I was a teenager I was very selfish like most of my peers at that time. As I grew older and became interested in spiritual matters and self development. Then the ideas of compassion, cooperation, selflessness and self sacrificing attracted me.
In Buddhism this is expressed by the Boddhisatva ideal – a person who has delayed his own liberation in order to help others. In Christinaity Jesus represents the supreme sacrifice of dying on the crosss to save us from our sins.
Then I came across the theories of Richard Dawkins who introduced me to the idea of the selfish gene. In evolutionary terms, creatures evolve because they are stronger or more adapted to survive. The mechanics of this involve the so-called selfish gene.
Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene, says:
“I shall argue that the fundamental unit of selection, and therefore of self-interest, is not the species, nor the group, nor even, strictly, the individual. It is the gene, the unit of heredity.”
What is implied here is that I my basic nature is to be ruled by selfishness and self interest. Is this incompatible with compassion and unselfishness?
Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier
In a recent book “Thanks” by Robert Emmons, editor of The Journal of Positive Psychology, he says that being grateful can help you sleep better – and he has evidence to support this.
On the surface Simon’s life seemed to be going well. He had a beautiful wife, two children, a well paid job, a nice car, a large house and had a network of friends. Despite this, he found it difficult to sleep at night and did not have a positive attitude to his life.
He rarely expressed thanks for the things in his life. For example he:
- Did not tell his wife that he loved her
- Did not thank his work colleagues for their support on the projects they worked on together
- Did not tell his friends how great they were
- Did not give his children a hug to express how much he cared for them
Simon was given Robert Emmons’ book by a friend and began to put into practice what he read.
Soon his life changed for the better.
