Lessons from the Continuum Concept - Lesson 1

In an earlier post I mentioned that I really enjoyed reading a couple of interviews with Jean Liedloff, author of the Continuum Concept. Well I finally read this 1975 classic and it has skyrocketed right into the top three on my "happiness literature" chart. The book has provided me with so much insight and inspiration that I have decided to do a small series on some of the lessons from this book. So without further ado, here we go with lesson #1:

The time we spend en route to a destination is equally valuable to the time we spend at the destination after we have arrived

Jean has a great story in the book about how she was helping the Yequana indians carry some of their load back to their village and how she felt that she was slowing them down. But suddenly she realized the indians didn't feel at all that she was slowing them down because they consider the time en route equally valuable to the time at the destination. Jean then makes the point of how much tension she felt released when she realized this.

When you think about it, this is brilliant. For some reason we in western society treat the time en route to somewhere as "inferior time". But that's nonsense, that's just our ego getting in the way, along with all the "we have to be productive" thinking we've picked up in our lives. I've tried incorporating this thinking into my life during the past few weeks and it does makes an incredible difference in living an even happier, more relaxed life. How about experimenting with this for a couple of weeks as well to see what it does to your life?

Cute video of a friendship between an orangutan and a hound dog

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

Happiness from the perspective of Evolutionary Psychology

Just came across an interesting paper in the Journal of Happiness Studies, called Happiness from the perspective of Evolutionary Psychology. The author is Bjorne Grinde and you can download the paper here. Here are some of the points it makes that I found interesting:

• The human capacity for positive and negative feelings is shaped by the forces of evolution
• Happiness, in the present meaning, appears to be not so much a feature shaped explicitly by the evolutionary process, but rather an indirect consequence of human nature (For the record, I disagree with this, as I believe happiness is built into us by evolution as one of the mechanisms for ensuring survival of our species and life in general on our planet)
• The brain is designed to induce us to take some chances, otherwise we would never have laid down a large prey or ventured into uncharted land; but it is also designed to stop us from causing harm to ourselves, that is, to avoid hazards. (Reminds me of the car analogy of human beings -- we have both a gas pedal as well as a brake pedal)
• Engaging the mind and body in tasks for which they are designed is expected to promote happiness by instigating positive feelings (for example that's why we feel good when we move, which is why regular exercise is such a good idea :-)
• There are, for example, data indicating that humans thrive better, and improve in cognitive tasks, in the presence of plants (I can personally confirm this one! :-)

The paper also touches on an aspect that I have already discussed a little bit in the post on the Continuum Concept as well as PBSP -- when babies are born, they have innate expectations regarding needs that they need to have met. And when these needs are not met, problems arise later in adulthood, such as various neuroses, negative tendencies, pessimism, etc. According to the paper, possible examples of such needs include the amount of skin to skin contact, the large number of strangers we interact with, restrictions on play behaviour (particularly on ‘rough-and-tumble’ play), and sleep patterns associated with shift work.

Well, this was just a very brief overwiew of a most interesting paper. For those interested in reading more about happiness from the point of view of evolution, I highly recommend downloading it (it's free!) and giving it a thorough read.

STOP IT!

Just came across a funny "client - psychiatrist" skit that definitely has a great deal of truth to it.



So is there anything in your life that if you stopped doing it you would be a lot happier?

Joseph Campbell: To find your own way is to follow your bliss

Again, I don't think much more needs to be added to this:

Are you happy?

Sometimes things can be really simple. I don't think much needs to be added to this:

PS: If anyone knows who should get credit for this picture, please let me know...

Why I am against "goal setting"; and my personal "general direction" statement

One of the recommendations that keeps appearing in success, happiness, motivation... self-help liturature is to set goals. Well I have to say that after seven years of studying happiness I have come to the conclusion that goal setting is counter-productive to living a life with more happiness and joy. Does nature set goals? I make this point about nature because

In all the studies of happiness, the planet’s happiest people always turn out to be the people living in the way closest to that of wild ancestral humans - modern day hunter-gatherers, living contented lives on islands, fishing and lounging about. The most miserable people on Earth appear to be the Japanese, and it is surely no coincidence that their way of life is the furthest removed from nature.

I paradoxically took this quote from an essay called "Why we can't find lasting happiness", which you can read here. (And yes, even though it is a very interesting essay, I do disagree with its main claims :-)

But returning to why I am against goal-setting. In my opinion goal-setting leads to too much focus on the goals themselves, judging success based on whether the goal is attained or not, and missing other opportunities that arise -- but we don't see -- while we're pursuing the set goals. In short, goal-setting takes us away from "flowing along with the natural tides of life, actively adapting where necessary or creating where we want to...", which I find to be the best way to live (if we make the conscious decision to live a happier life with more joy...).

Instead of goals, I prefer having a "general direction" or "general directions" in life. For example, one of my general directions is to "inspire people in western civilization to do less and enjoy more", or, to borrow from Jon Kabat Zinn, "inspire people to actually be more like human 'beings', instead of human 'doings'". I will write more about this at some point in 2010...