disaster, there’s virtue that arises, and that there’s a joy, there’s a hope and a joy, and I was thinking about that phrase of hers, “the duty of delight.” Right? So it’s not — so yes, there’s — she makes sacrifices that seem — that would seem extreme in the context of most of our lives. But that joy was also something she claimed and hung onto. MS. SOLNIT: Joy is such an interesting term, because we hear constantly about happiness, “Are you happy?” And it’s — emotions are mutable, and this notion that happiness should be a steady state seems destined to make people miserable. And joy is so much... posted on Jun 25 2016 (10,631 reads)

few years ago, illustrator and editorial cartoonist Sarah Lazarovic felt like she was buying too much junk. So she stopped shopping for a year, then documented her withdrawals and, eventually, all the lessons and tips and tricks she learned about not buying things. Instead of buying the items she coveted, she made paintings of them. During that time, instead of buying the items she coveted, she made paintings of them. That led to the illustrated book calledA Bunch of Pretty Things I Did Not Buy. It also led to doing that same “covet counseling” for others. She calls her project the “Office of Divestment.” She will draw the thing you want to buy. You get t... posted on Sep 9 2016 (18,583 reads)

nature depends on two things: special places and special people. As parents and educators, we can spend more time with children in nature. We can go there with them. Taking time to do that can be quite a challenge. Getting kids outside needs to be a conscious act on the part of parents or caregivers. We need to schedule nature time. This proactive approach is simply part of today’s reality. My new book, Vitamin N, includes 500 actions that people can take to enrich the health and happiness of their families and communities—and to help create a future that we’ll all want to go to. Richard Louv's new book is Vitamin N: 500 Ways to Enrich the Health & ... posted on Nov 23 2016 (15,784 reads)

of the great tragedies of modern life is that we live in a culture of death denial. The advertising industry tells us we are forever young, and we retire elders away to care homes, out of sight and mind. As a Western culture, we’ve lost the connection with our mortality our forebears had, when dancing skeletons decorated medieval church walls and people wore skull brooch memento mori (Latin for ‘remember you must die’) as a reminder that death could take them at any moment.  We are constantly dying. The proximity of death propelled our ancestors to live with a radical aliveness that we can hardly imagine in our tech-saturated sedentary present, as we check o... posted on Sep 9 2017 (15,470 reads)

you should get to the point where you’re treating yourself, whether you’re at work or at play, in basically the same way. [music: “Seven League Boots” by Zoe Keating] Krista Tippett, host: Ellen Langer is a social psychologist who some have dubbed “the mother of mindfulness.” But she defines mindfulness with counterintuitive simplicity — “the simple act of actively noticing things,” with the result of increased health, competence, and happiness. Her take on mindfulness has never involved contemplation or meditation or yoga. It comes straight out of her provocative, unconventional studies, which have been suggesting for decades what... posted on Apr 2 2018 (17,285 reads)

research findings like these provide useful food for thought throughout the book. By learning this fascinating science, we can all become better influencers—and we can also guard against manipulation from others. The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, by Florence Williams Florence Williams chronicles our intricate connection to the natural world and nature’s impact on our health, creativity, and happiness. She makes a strong case for incorporating more green spaces into our lives to improve personal and societal well-being. Williams has traveled around the world to collect research finding... posted on Nov 27 2018 (14,760 reads)

looking for help in rewriting your story, Tris Thorp of the Chopra Center suggests that you frame your future in the positive. You have a choice in how you interpret your life’s circumstances. “You can choose to focus on the negative by looking at all that is wrong, which leads to more pain and suffering,” Thorp writes, “or you can choose to look for what's right – to find the gifts or the opportunities – which leads to more potential, and more joy, happiness, and fulfillment.” As you shift the way you think about your future, you begin to reimagine and rewrite your past. We all have a story within us, that is continually reshaped by... posted on Mar 1 2018 (39,045 reads)

right? ‘Cause I might think, Alright, I’m going to put this one hour walk into my day now so that I will have the great thought for my work, but the great thought doesn’t come because I’m expecting it to come! Such a good point. Expectations always defeat themselves. And if you go on retreat and say, “I’m going to come back with the answers to my life,” you probably won’t. Or if you go to Tibet and say “I’m going to find happiness and enlightenment,” you’ve all but ensured you won’t. So what you said is really wise in reminding us that we don’t want to be too focused on results. I also note ... posted on May 11 2018 (12,071 reads)

long-term storage. This is not about holding on to experiences. The stream of consciousness is constantly changing, so trying to cling to anything in it is both doomed and painful. But you cangently encourage whatever is beneficial to arise and stick around and sink in—even as you are letting go of it. Happiness is like a beautiful wild animal watching from the edge of a forest. If you try to grab it, it will run away. But if you sit by your campfire and add some sticks to it, happiness will come to you, and stay. 4. Link it In Linking, you are simply conscious of both “negative” and “positive” material at the same time. For example, off to the... posted on Apr 24 2018 (26,004 reads)

of the unexpected pleasures of getting older is learning to cultivate and harvest gratitude more readily. Maybe it’s the fact that we recognize that wanting what we have (gratitude) creates more happiness than having what we want (gratification). After two dozen years running my own boutique hotel company, Joie de Vivre Hospitality, I sold it at the bottom of the Great Recession in 2010 and didn’t know what was next for me. I did appreciate having space in my life to experience “collective effervescence” at religious pilgrimages from the Hindu Maha Kumbh Mela in India to the Sufi Mevlana Whirling Dervish Festival in Turke... posted on Nov 14 2018 (6,179 reads)

of Insights at the Edge, Bronnie outlines these five major life regrets with Tami Simon and discusses the experiences in end-of-life care that inspired them. Bronnie explains how most regrets arise from a lack of courage and why people are willing to share so openly during their last days. Tami and Bronnie speak on the healing power of sharing our most vulnerable selves, even if it's in a letter that we never send. Finally, they talk about maintaining trust in the flow of life and why happiness is ultimately a choice. Tuesday, July 23, 2019 TS: You're listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Bronnie Ware. Bronnie is an author, songwriter, and motiva... posted on Aug 12 2019 (13,124 reads)

at all — a contradiction that makes it impossible to choose between options as we navigate even the most basic realities of life: Why choose to take the umbrella into the downpour, why choose to eat this piece of mango and not this piece of cardboard? But Watts observes that the only real contradiction is of our own making as we cede the present to an imagined future. More than half a century before psychologists came to study how your present self is sabotaging your future happiness, Watts offers the personal counterpart to Albert Camus’s astute political observation that “real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present,” ... posted on Apr 4 2021 (7,314 reads)

at every hour, and your kindness, simplicity, and morality. LEO TOLSTOY In the middle of his fifty-fifth year, reflecting on his imperfect life and his own moral failings, Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828–November 20, 1910) set out to construct a manual for morality by compiling “a wise thought for every day of the year, from the greatest philosophers of all times and all people,” whose wisdom “gives one great inner force, calmness, and happiness” — thinkers and spiritual leaders who have shed light on what is most important in living a rewarding and meaningful life. Such a book, Tolstoy envisioned, would tell a person &l... posted on Mar 18 2023 (4,361 reads)

showing that lonely and isolated people have poorer immune function, experience higher levels of inflammation, and are at greater risk for heart disease, cancer and diabetes. While everybody’s vulnerability to loneliness and social isolation differs, we all need social connection. (Shutterstock) Perhaps just as importantly, Harvard research from the longest-running cohort study ever conducted suggests that warm social relationships are the most important predictor of happiness across the life course. In other words, people who are disconnected lead sicker, sadder and shorter lives. Public health guidelines In response to this epidemic of loneliness, my te... posted on Jun 29 2023 (4,557 reads)

about the science of gratitude in Emmons' book, Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. Physical • Stronger immune systems • Less bothered by aches and pains • Lower blood pressure • Exercise more and take better care of their health • Sleep longer and feel more refreshed upon waking Psychological • Higher levels of positive emotions • More alert, alive, and awake • More joy and pleasure • More optimism and happiness Social • More helpful, generous, and compassionate • More forgiving • More outgoing • Feel less lonely and isolated. The social benefits are especially significant ... posted on Jun 20 2011 (76,722 reads)

Hayes: People ask me, “How do you do it all?” The answer is, I don’t … and there’s a good reason for that. Yesterday morning, when I finished writing for the day, I signed on to check my email. From the sea of unread messages, one stood out. The subject line, written in all caps, read: HOW DO YOU DO IT ALL? The more I write, the more I speak, the more I hear this question. It’s understandable. I paint my life as a dreamy blend of farming, cooking, home schooling, canning, lacto-fermenting, music-making, soap-making, crafting, writing, occasional travel for speaking engagements or research and, believe it or not, I even find time to knit. I&rsq... posted on Jul 26 2011 (10,104 reads)

Brazilians, Dutch fishermen and Filipino computer programmers, in their own languages, you start to see that we are all incredibly alike where it matters. Everyone just wants validation, love, security, enjoyment and hopes for a better future. The way they verbalise this and work towards it is where things branch off, but we all have the same basic desires. You can relate to everyone in the world if you look past the superficial things that separate you. 2. Deferring your happiness to the future is a terrible idea Too many people presume that when they have that one thing they can work towards for years then “everything will be alright”... posted on Jul 17 2011 (62,258 reads)

to get people to care,” says Small. “Finding a way to make people feel a personal connection to victims should increase giving.” And Christine Carter reminds us that children should not be shielded from people who need help. “Too often we protect our kids from pain and suffering, and in so doing we shelter them from others’ needs,” she writes. “Consider the counterintuitive notion that compassion is a positive emotion strongly correlated with happiness, and provide them with opportunities to feel compassion. Teach kids that this compassion is a gift—it is a way to give their time, attention, and energy to another.” 4. Be sta... posted on Dec 25 2011 (12,296 reads)

what I had, instead of focusing on the things I didn’t have or didn’t like. I was grateful for my health, for the people in my life, for having food and being alive. If you can learn to develop the right mindset, you can be happy now, without changing anything else. You don’t need to wait until you’ve changed everything and made your life perfect before you’re happy — you have everything you need to be happy right now. The mindset of waiting for happiness is a never-ending cycle. You get a better job (yay!) and then immediately start thinking about what your next promotion will be. You get a nicer house and immediately start looking at how ni... posted on Sep 8 2012 (36,852 reads)

this great line by Ani Tenzin Palmo, an English woman who spent 12 years in a cave in Tibet: “We do not know what a thought is, yet we’re thinking them all the time.” gobyg It’s true. The amount of knowledge we have about the brain has doubled in the last 20 years. Yet there’s still a lot we don’t know. In recent years, though, we have started to better understand the neural bases of states like happiness, gratitude, resilience, love, compassion, and so forth. And better understanding them means we can skillfully stimulate the neural substrates of those states—which, in turn, means we can strengthen them. Because as the... posted on Sep 15 2012 (147,638 reads)