Thanks! and Three More
194. Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier by Robert A. Emmons
Emmons serepititiously began to study gratitude during a conference on the classical sources of human strength: wisdom, hope, love, spirituality, gratitude, humility; he signed up for humility but was assigned gratitude. Emmons was surprised to find that by practicing gratitude, people can increase their happiness. Apparently, the brain can not experience both negative and positive emotions at the same time. Emmons proposes ten ways for adults to practice gratitude: keeping a gratitude journal; remembering the bad parts of the past and being grateful for getting through those times; asking three questions (”What have I received from ___?” “What have I given to ___?” and “What troubles and difficulties have I caused ___?”); learning prayers of gratitude; “coming to your senses”; using visual reminders to be grateful; making a vow to practice gratitude; using the language of gratefulness; going through the motions; and thinking outside the box for things for which to be grateful. He also calls for gratitude training in childhood, in order to develop a tool that will foster well-being.
195. Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost
Just in time for the 2008 Olympic Games, I get a behind the curtain look at China. And that look at China is not pretty. Despite all attempts to appear as a modern nation, China’s leaders continue to rule the country with an iron hand. The law is wielded despotically and seemingly at a whim. Capitalism has somehow managed to sneak into the country, but it is an ugly capitalism, run with the tired hands of a weary people desperate to make a living and with side effects of rampant pollution that threatens the air and water of every large city in China. And there are people, people, people everywhere, one and a half billion altogether, with all the horrors that such a large population brings.
Not a place I wish to visit.
196. Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States; 22,000 Miles; 200 Shoes; 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband; and a Bus with a Will of Its Own by Doreen Orion
After the virtually joyless trip I just took with Troost in Lost on Planet China (not Troost’s fault…China is just not a pretty world these days), I was happy to climb aboard with Doreen Orion in Queen of the Road and travel around the (relatively) clean U.S. of A. Orion’s husband convinces her to buy an enormous bus, convert it to a travel-mobile, and set out on a yearlong adventure across America. Orion is a fun traveling companion and seems to find every quirky spot and person in the country. A great summer read.
197. A Death in the Family by James Agee
There are good reads that satisfy and are thoughtful and have lovely writing. And then there are the truly great reads that leave the reader longing to start the book over and reread it just as soon as one turns to the final paragraph. A Death in the Family is a great read.
The story is very simple. Jay Follet, the dad and the husband in the family, receives a call from his brother that his father is very ill and is near death. Jay goes to be with his father and on his return is killed in an automobile accident.
But there is so much more to this book that makes it a great read. The writing is beautiful, filled with wonderful words and phrases that feel fresh and new without feeling artificial. Agee gets inside each character’s head so that each character seems unique and genuine. The reader is left with the mysteries of the story that so often occur in real life: Had Jay been drinking when the accident took place? Was Jay’s father really seriously ill and, if not, why did Jay’s brother call? What will happen to Jay’s wife and children? How will the accident change their lives?
A must read.
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Seligman and Flow
Professor Seligman says our brains are simply not set up for good times. “The default motion of our tongue is to find the cavity rather than a really nice tooth and similarly the mind’s default is to find what is wrong.”
Professor Seligman says people need to train their minds to view life positively….
Professor Seligman divides happiness into three strands – the hedonic/pleasant, the engaged and the meaningful life.
Research on his students – supported by those who have taken psychological tests on his website, http://www.authentichappiness.org – demonstrate that personal gratification is enjoyable but feelings of well-being don’t last long.
Instead he found it is when you experience “flow”, where you are totally absorbed by a task, that you experience longer lasting well-being.
A sense of happiness lasts longer still when you have a meaningful life. “This comes from using your highest strengths to serve something that is bigger than you are.”
In his research students had to do something that was fun and then something philanthropic. “They learned that when the fun thing is over, it’s over. We believe that money brings happiness, control and security and are astonished to find that people are happier helping someone than going shopping.”
Professor Seligman has taught Geelong Grammar staff about 18 techniques to enhance happiness. One technique is called a gratitude visit, whereby you write and then read a testimonial to someone you never properly thanked. He claims it makes you feel happier even a month later.
…he says 20 studies on altruism have shown that happy people are more altruistic.
Professor Seligman says…optimistic people are more creative, have happier marriages, less divorce, increased school grades and income, and live up to nine years longer.
From FairfaxDigital
1 | Comment (0)A Quote for Today
We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
1 | Comment (0)Helping Me Help Myself
107. Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort 
Zone by Beth Lisick
I read this over spring break, but I seem to have forgotten to add it to my list of books read this year.
Didn’t I already read this book? No, it wasn’t this one, but the idea behind it was exactly the same. The book is Practically Perfect in Every Way and in it the author attempts to try to improve herself by reading self-help books. Beth Lisick does the same thing, but she also decides to try attending a workshop by the author of the self-help book. She feels, by the end of her year, that she has improved, unlike our Practically Perfect author. Both authors, sadly, spent an awful lot of money attempting to be better people, buying books, attending workshops, traveling to meet self-help gurus. Tax write-offs, I guess.
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47. Practically Perfect in Every Way by Jennifer Niesslein
I’ve been thinking about happiness since last summer. I’ve read books on happiness and taken notes on happiness and tried out happiness theories.
Jennifer Niesslein has spent the same time and energy on what to me seems like a bigger idea: virtue. Can I become better? she asks herself in this book. Niesslein spends no time attempting to define virtue for the larger society nor does she spend any time plotting out the best ways to become more virtuous. Instead she focuses strictly on trying to improve herself. She spends little time trying to discover the best ways to improve herself, either. She seems, rather, to just pick up and try whatever is closest at hand.
She fails. Yes, she fails, over and over again. She doesn’t become tidier. She doesn’t save money for retirement. She doesn’t lose much weight. Worst of all, she doesn’t become much happier; instead, she becomes filled with anxiety and fear, begins to suffer from panic attacks, and starts sleepwalking. She flat out writes, “It’s hard to change who you are, if it’s possible at all.”
She admits this, but nevertheless seems to find the entire experience worthwhile. When she hit rock bottom, she ran across a guide to Zen. Something in the book helped her. So she leaves us with the thought that it was all worth it.
I am not really sure that Niesslein’s book should be taken as anything more than one person’s adventure with self-help. From the start, she was trying to change too many things too fast using too unfocused a method. Oh well. It is not a book that changed my life, but I did enjoy reading about a person trying to become better even if it was just to publish a book about the process.
50. What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage by Amy Sutherland
I should have taken notes while I read this book.
Sutherland is sent to write a newspaper article about exotic animal trainers. In the process of writing the article, she realizes that the training techniques of the animal trainers are the same ones we humans use, albeit unconsciously and not very well, on our spouses, our friends, and our children.
This book is Sutherland’s attempt to show how she was able to take the methods of the trainers and purposefully apply them to change situations in her own life.
Is it really that easy?
Well, of course not.
But if Sutherland thinks it has made her a better person, a happier person, than I think it is worth it for me to go back through the book and take notes and try some of these things out.
Here are my notes:
“It’s never the animal’s fault.”
“Train every animal like it’s a killer whale,” as if you can neither move it by force or dominate it.
“Everything with a mouth bites.”
“Reward the behavior you want and ignore the behavior you don’t want.”
“Any interaction is training.”
“Don’t take it personally. See behavior as just behavior.”
“Set your animal up for success.”
“People, like animals, aren’t wired to learn lessons when they are out of sorts.”
“Punishment produces hatred, fear, desire for revenge, aggression, and apathy.”
“Keep your animals happy.”
“If one method of training isn’t working, try another.”
“Least Reinforcing Scenario”
“Incompatible behaviors.”
“Go back to kindergarten.”
52. Blood by Patricia Traxler
My ears perk up when I hear the phrase “my favorite book.”
I just can’t resist reading a book when I hear it is someone’s favorite.
I can easily see the draw of this book. Norrie Blume is involved in a compelling stay-go relationship with a man who has a firm commitment to his wife and children. Norrie also develops two equally compelling relationships with two women, relationships that both satisfy and frustrate her, much like her relationship to the married man. Norrie is an artist; she is able to bring all the joys and difficulties of her life into her paintings. It is fascinating for the reader to watch Norrie paint her joys and difficulties into objects of beauty and horror.
That’s what I liked about the book. But there was much I did not like. I found it difficult to believe that after two years of an affair, the wife never caughts on. Blood was tossed here and there throughout the story, and was often tossed into places that filled me with revulsion. I never saw the attraction of Norrie to the married man. Despite these qualities, I dove into the book and read page after page, hoping for an ending that would draw everything together. This ending did not happen. The ending was very unsatisfactory to me. Everything was left broken. It was not clear how Norrie finally managed to let go of the boyfriend. It was not clear how Norrie’s admirer was finally able to let go of Norrie. The ending felt very jumbled; the ending felt like the author got tired and tried to finish everything up by sewing together all the questions, but not in a way that seemed justified by the story.
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36. Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer
“Who wanted to walk through lonely years, right foot, left foot, and never change step—never skip, run or skate?”
That’s Lucinda, an Anne-of-Green-Gables girl, filled with energy and enthusiasm, unexpectedly set loose in the city of New York. Lucinda’s parents head off to Europe for their health and Lucinda is left in the care of two very relaxed school teachers. She travels around New York City, befriending the poor and the lonely, on roller skates.
What a surprise to see a girl of the 1890’s, a society girl raised with all the Victorian rules and regulations stamped upon her, free to make friends with homeless men and battered wives of new immigrants and fruit sellers! I liked this book a lot. I wonder if Lucinda is able to keep her friends and her freedom once her parents have returned and regained control.
37. It’s Like This, Cat by Emily Neville
Dave and his dad fight all the time and Dave’s mother gets sick. Dave brings home a cat who he appropriately names Cat. Cat helps Dave meet Tom and Mary and binds Dave and his parents into a real family.
I can remember reading this book when I was a young girl. I remember being confused about people who live in apartments (people do that?) and hearing a dad and his son argue all the time (a son is talking back to his dad and surviving?). I remember thinking Tom was an odd duck, a boy who was ignored by his family (does that really happen?) And the lingo the people speak, especially the young people, a dialect and vocabulary so different from my Texas lingo….This book took me right out of my little small-town world.
38. The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
Eric Weiner hears about a study done on the happiest spots on the planet. He makes a plan to visit some of them and determine the happiness levels for himself. In the process he visits Bhutan, the Netherlands, India, Switzerland, Qatar, and Iceland, discovering one man’s happiness is another man’s misery. Later, he visits the most unhappy country on the planet, Moldova, and agrees with the assessment. He goes on to visit other potential joy spots and determines their happiness quotients.
Happiness is my topic of study for 2008. I’ve set for myself an unofficial challenge to learn everything I can about happiness. This book met the requirements of my challenge.
39. Invincible Louisa by Cornelia Meigs
I’ve often heard little stories about the Louisa of this book, Louisa May Alcott, but I’ve never read much real information about her. This is a biography of her life. Louisa grew up in a family determined to change the world by actively living their beliefs. She was best known as the author of Little Women.
As interesting to me as Louisa May Alcott was her father. Bronson Alcott was friends with every influential person of his time including Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorn. He barely made enough money to feed his children, yet he felt led to always give what little he had away to help others.
Louisa provided the only income the family had for much of her life. She worked doggedly as a writer between stints of work as a governess, a teacher, and a seamstress.
What a family!
40. Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
How could a child read this book and complain about her life in 21st century America? The two families in this book suffer from the ravages of grasshoppers, illness, hunger, and jealousy. They argue and fight with each other, eventually going so far as to kill each other’s animals and set fire to the other’s farmhouse. A hardscrabble life complete with rattlesnakes and alligators and swamps. Yet there was also a beauty to this life, of neighbors helping each other, even when they have little for themselves. Some unbelievable elements—an alcoholic dad suddenly stops drinking and a child who never seems to do anything worse than get a little mad now and then—but all in all a worthwhile read.
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32. Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes
This is the kind of simple story about ordinary happy families that I read in bulk as a child. (I remember reading this particular story, in fact.) Rachel and Jerry are brother and sister, living with their mom and dad in a quiet little town. Jerry wants a dog, but he knows it is nearly impossible for him to earn the dollar he needs in time to buy the dog. Lo and behold, an opportunity to earn money avails itself to Jerry and, before he knows it, he is the proud owner of Ginger, a brilliantly clever dog. But, alas, others learn of Ginger’s brilliance. Ginger disappears. The rest of the book is devoted to searching for Ginger. And that’s the whole book. No family turmoil. No dysfunctional people. Everyone in the story seems, well, focused and kind and happy and…gosh, nice. Was Estes deluding herself? Were families really like this? Are most families like this now? One can always hope.
33. Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine
I moved from Ginger Pye to Shortcomings, a typical book for this generation of young readers. The main character is a miserably unhappy fellow, in his early 20’s, who has an awful job and terrible relationships. He alienates his girlfriend and irritates most of the other people in his life. He bungles through his daily life, never feeling joy or even small moments of contentment. The book ends (and this will surprise no one who reads books of this type) with our fellow returning to his pathetic life, sans girlfriend, minus his one friend, hoping that somehow things have changed for the better. Yeah, right.
How did we go from Ginger Pye to Shortcomings? Have people really gone from having lovely lives to living every day on the edge of suicide? Where are all the Ginger Pye books of 2008? Are people really Shortcomings-miserable?
34. The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
And thus we move, logically, to The Happiness Hypothesis. Ben Tanaka, main character of Shortcomings, could use The Happiness Hypothesis. Ginger Pye and the rest of the Pye family apparently intuitively knew The Happiness Hypothesis.
Haidt looks at ancient wisdom and compares it to the result of the new science of positive psychology. Some of the things I learned from this book:
*Reciprocity is the best guide to life. This is the classic “Do unto others” thought.
*There are three effective ways to happiness: meditation, cognitive therapy, and Prozac.
*People have good insight about other people, but are terrible in judging themselves. They cannot see their own flaws.
*Instead of trying to improve weaknesses, we should work on our strengths. Often we can use a strength to get around a weakness.
*The personality is now thought to have three components: (1) our basic and classic traits of neuroticism and extroversion, (2) the ways we characteristically adapt including openness to new experiences, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and (3) our life story, the way we have made sense of our lives.
*It takes adversity to reach our highest levels. Posttraumatic growth is rising to the challenges of problems, which reveals hidden abilities and changes our self-concept.
35. A Gathering of Days by Joan W. Blos
Written in the form of a journal, this book is the story of a year in the life of a fourteen year old girl living in New England in the early 1830’s. During the year, Catherine helps a runaway slave, loses her best friend, sees her widowed father remarry, and leaves her farm forever.
There is something about a book written as a journal that draws the reader close to the characters. I had just started this book when a fifth grader came into the library and asked if I could find her a book like A Gathering of Days. She loved it and wanted to read more books like it.
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From The Happiness Hypothesis:
‘Csikszentmihalyi’s big discovery is that there is a state many people value….It is the state of total immersion in a task that is challenging yet closely matched to one’s abilities. It is what people sometimes call “being in the zone.” Csikszentmihalyi called it “flow” because it often feels like effortless movement….The keys to flow: There’s a clear challenge that fully engages your attention; you have the skills to meet the challenge; and you get immediate feedback about how you are doing at each step….You get flash after flash of positive feeling….elephant and rider are in perfect harmony. The elephant (automatic processes) is doing most of the work, running smoothly through the forest, while the rider (conscious thought) is completely absorbed in looking out for problems and opportunities, helping wherever he can.’
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