An interesting presentation about how sitting may actually be killing you...

Fascinating stuff - sitting may be killing you!

A short presentation that I came across by being a fan of Dan Millman on Facebook. If you don't want to go through the entire (but short) presentation, just know that it's a good idea to interrupt sitting whenever possible and stretch, walk, do jumping jacks, whatever, just to get the blood flowing again. The human body simply wasn't made for sitting...

My top three happiness habits

Yesterday a friend of mine asked me what I thought were the three most important "happiness habits". I found the question so intriguing that I decided I would answer it on this blog :-)

Obviously I -- and nobody else, for that matter -- can say what the three definitive happiness habits are. But what I can say is what the top three are for me - at least at this stage of my life. So here we go, in no particular order:

1) The DAILY BAG exercise! It consists of asking and answering the following three questions:

• what are some of my blessings? (what am I grateful for in my life?)
• what are some of my accomplishments? (what am I really proud of in my life?)
• what are my goals, dreams, ambitions? (for today, this month, next five years?)

This exercise comes from the book "The psychology of winning" by Dr. Denis Waitley, and I like this daily exercise so much that I do it at least once a week :-) Personally for me, I find that it's reminding myself of the things that I am grateful for that has the greatest impact on my happiness.

2) Regular daily exercise or movement routine. Every morning I make sure that I get at least five minutes of my favorite physical exercises before continuing with the rest of my day. If possible, I try to get in at least 10 or 15 minutes. What I think is important is experimenting with and discovering a routine that works well. For some such a routine can be based on yoga, others may prefer one based on martial arts. I like to base about 70% of my daily exercise routine on Dan Millman's "Peaceful Warrior Workout" and I flexibly add the other 30% based on however I am feeling that morning. I also think that even if you can do just one minute, than it's worth doing. As Dan says, "one minute every day is a lot better than an hour zero times per week" (or something like that :-)

And if anyone's interested, this routine is a part of my larger "start the day right" routine, which also consists of a meditation, hot/cold shower and at least one piece of fruit for breakfast. I think such a "start the day right" routine is extremely useful, but likely somewhat different for everyone - experiment, experiment, experiment.

3) And finally, I am not sure it this last one is a habit -- perhaps it's more of a principle -- but I find it so important that I want to include it here: Recognize that being happy means being generally happy, and not all the time happy. I am not sure who said it, but "if we were happy all the time, how would we know?". I personally have the feeling that there is a general consensus in society that we have to be happy all the time, otherwise something is wrong. Well I don't buy that. I don't think there is anything wrong at all if we are unhappy, sad or angry once a in a while. In fact, I actually think that being unhappy, sad or angry occasionaly is a sign that we're healthy! It's all about what feelings predominate our lives, and that feeling should hopefully be happiness. I've found that approaching life in this way releases a lot of pressure and, lo and behold, increases the percentage of time that I am happy, AND increases the intensity of this happiness.

Well, I could write about this for hours, but I think I'll stop here. After all, blog entries should be brief. But enough about me. What are your top three happiness habits?

Great things are sometimes built on simple but solid foundations

I love the video below. It contains several messages I really like, including the one in the title of this post. I also love the power of Wintley's presentation style!

Manifestation of a mature personality

I came across a wonderful few sentences while waiting at a doctor's office in Prague today. They were in Czech, so the words below are my translation of them. I believe I am coming along on some of the ideas, but I still need to do a lot work on all of them. Like letting go more and more of the safety of seclusion or being more kind towards my own as well as others’ imperfections. Which ones do you need to work on most? May these words be a useful reminder from time to time.

A mature personality manifests itself by:

A warm relationship with oneself (self-acceptance) as well as things outside of the self.
Willingness to “expose” oneself to others and let go of the safety of seclusion.
Participating in the forming of close, intimate, kind-hearted relationships.
Openess to the differences of various worlds in which “the others” live.
Understanding for ourselves as well as others.
Tolerance of the incomprehensible in others.
Kindness towards our own as well as others’ imperfections.
Patience with our own as well as others’ limits.
Searching for ways that provide opportunities to meet with ourselves as well as others.

Original text by Tereza Kocourková

Positive affirmations make some people feel worse

There is a great article on Macleans.ca titled "The powerlessness of positive thinking - Self-affirming statements actually make some people feel worse". The article presents research supporting the thesis that positive thinking is not as effective in improving self-esteem as some popular self-help authors would like readers to believe. I fully agree with the researchers that "focusing on positive thinking" is not the way to increase self-esteem or become happier. I believe that this is because a positive affirmation addresses the present, whereas the low esteem or tendency to think negatively is rooted in the past, usually the deep past.
Personally I've seen my self-esteem increase with the use of PBSP, about which I've written in an earlier post. And I believe that the reason PBSP works is precisely because it deals with self-esteem or negative thinking at the time when the roots of the issues begin - usually between the ages of 0-3.
Returning to the article, I do not agree with the researchers' statement that "...if you can find a loving, supportive partner that’s probably the best possibility for your self-esteem". In fact, I think that's a bit of a dangerous statement because that would make one's self esteem conditional on something, or someone, else. And like happiness, I believe you can't have self-esteem dependent on anything outside of yourself. In addition, increased self-esteem because of a partner could also lead to all kinds of co-dependency issues in a relationship, as per the Drama Triangle, also discussed in an earlier post.

About this blog and author

As is evident from the title, this blog will be dedicated to human joy and happiness, especially to how each and every one of us can increase the amount of joy and happiness in his or her life and make it last. In order to accomplish this, I will discuss relevant techniques, the great teachers of this topic, various inspiring resources (books, movies, websites...), my own "principles of happiness for the 21st century" as well as anything that I believe is useful for this journey. I would also love to hear from you, the reader, what you have found useful over the long-term so that some good information exchange happens here.
The emphasis of this blog will be on openess, honesty, clarity, content and easy readability and comprehension of this content. I will do my utmost to cut out any irrelevant words, information or "flash and flair".
And why do I feel I am competent to run a blog on human joy and happiness? 11 years ago I got my MBA with a perfect 4.0 GPA after having a two year try as a professional tennis player. 10 years ago I began my career in the corporate world as a McKinsey consultant. But 6 years ago I began feeling that despite having what most of western society would call a "successful life", I wasn't happy deep inside. And some health issues began slowly creeping up as well. So I slowly began immersing myself in the psychology of joy and happiness until 3 years ago I quit the corporate world for good in order to pursue a life of joy and happiness full time. And slowly, over time, as I discovered and learned amazing things, I became happier, calmer and the health issues have gone away. So perhaps you can think of this blog as my report from this six year transformation, which, of course, is still under way and will continue until I transform into whatever comes after this life.
Of course I still have to make money in order to live life on my own terms. But I discovered that I need a lot less money than I thought. So I spend about 15 hours a week 45 weeks a year translating from Czech to English. This allows me to live comfortably and have lots of free time to pursue to pursue things I want to pursue. Like joy and happiness, among other things. And of course I still get upset, angry and frustrated at times. But I believe this is a sign of human health and all a part of the journey and learnings. So to end this post, I hope to share many of the findings that I have discovered on my journey and to inspire you to make joy and happiness the number one priority in your life. I believe you'll find it's the best decision you can ever make.