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60 Minutes did a segment on Happiness.

Here is a 12 minute excerpt, followed by some highlights from this episode and some additional perspectives on how to be happy.

Denmark tops the list of the happiest country in the world. The segment takes a look at what makes Danes so happy. As one of the researchers puts it, this may be due to the Danes modest expectations. It may also have to do with the fact that college students get paid to go to school, a dad gets paid for 6 months to stay home and care for his child, free healthcare for all, subsidized child care, and 6 weeks vacation. As one of the Danish college students interviewed for the segment “we are secured from the day we are born.” The average tax rate though is about 50%.Some Danish college students state what is important to them, work they enjoy, time with their families, low stress, and one of the students offers advice to Americans “don’t depend too much on the American Dream, you might get disappointed.” I don’t agree with the notion not to attempt something because you could fail.U.S. comes in as the 23rd happiest country. Dont worry we come in ahead of Iraq.Tal Ben Shahar a professor and researcher at Harvard University teaches the “most popular course on campus; “Positive Psychology”. He is also the author of the recently released “Happier”. He suggests Americans would not be willing to pay a 50% tax rate for the lifestyle the Danes have. Americans have higher expectations a “want it all” mentality focused on material things, which does not make one happier. He loosely defines happy as the intersection between doing something that has meaning to us and which gives us pleasure.Ben Shahar offers 5 easy steps to happiness:

1. Simplify-Do less rather than more. More is not necessarily better.
2. Exercising as little as three times per week can have an impact as powerful as some psychiatric drugs.
3. Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account. Do you see the glass half empty or half full?
4. Accept your painful emotions such as sadness or frustration. They are a normal part of life.
5. Appreciate what you have. When you appreciate the good in your life, the good appreciates, you get more of it.

Shahar goes on to say that the number one predictor of well-being is close friendships and relationships in general.

60 Minutes is not the only media outlet covering happiness as of late.

Good Morning America and 20/20 both did stories just last month on Happiness. GMA Interviewed UC Riverside Professor and Sonja Lyubomirsky; author of the recently released “The How of Happiness.”
Her research shows “If we observe genuinely happy people, we shall find that they do not just sit around being contented. They make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings. In sum, our intentional, effortful activities have a powerful effect on how happy we are, over and above the effects of our set points and the circumstances in which we find oursselves.” Based on her findings she offers 12 scientific strategies for happiness. ABC News has an excerpt of her book available.

This academic and scientific research on happiness stems from Positive Psychology, founded by Dr. Martin Seligman; Director of the Positive Psychology Center at The University of Pennsylvania. On their Authentic Happiness Website there are free questionaires which will measure different degrees of happiness, character, and other related areas.

I have great respect for the area of positive psychology. It serves as part of the foundation for the Life Coaching that I am trained in. While the academic research and findings are quite interesting, this look at Happiness would not be complete without mentioning “The Art Of The Happiness” by The Dalai Lama and Dr. Howard Cutler. The book is a dialogue between the two authors. While not free of modern science and research, the core premises of this book are steeped in Buddhism.

These premises are:

1. The purpose of life is happiness.
2. Happiness is determined more by the state of one’s mind than by one’s external conditions, circumstances, or events—at least once one’s basic survival needs are met.
3. Happiness can be achieved through the systematic training of our hearts and minds, through reshaping our attitudes and outlook.
4. The key to happiness is in our own hands.

Gretchen Rubin is a New York City based author an fellow blogger, currently working on a book called “ The Happiness Project”. It states on her blog that it will be “a memoir about the year I spent test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study I could find, whether from Aristotle or St. Therese or Martin Seligman or Oprah. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will gather these rules for living and report on what works and what doesn’t. On this daily blog, I recount some of my adventures and insights as I grapple with the challenge of being happier.”

So while there are a number of different perspectives and the subject of happiness is  on a lot of people’s minds, with varying conclusions.  One take-away for me is that so much of it has to do with our own attitude. The way that we choose to see things. The glass half-full or half-empty perspective.  Do you need to have what you want, or want what you already have to be happy?

Although I have not seen the Bucket List, I have an idea of the basic storyline. The plot is about two aging men, who through illness, are confronted with their mortality, and become intent on making the most of their remaining time. They make their “bucket lists,” a list of those things they want to do before they die, and set out to do them.

The theme of using the inevitably of death to make the most of your life is not a new one, although a movie can certainly help bring the notion into the mainstream. It was Socrates who said “practicing dying is the highest form of wisdom”.

This theme has been expressed in all types of literature, including articles, books, and poems. A quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes has always been poignant to me; “Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.” Does anyone really want to die with their music still in them? You don’t need to wait to you are older, or ill, to take make your list and take action on it.

One of my earliest recollections of coming across this idea of embracing the inevitability of death to live, is in the pioneering personal development book, The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck. He asks the reader to imagine they were just told they have 6 months to live. What is the first thing you would do upon leaving the doctor’s office?

In the late 90’s Steven Levine’s A Year to Live was published. This book is essentially a manual, designed to instruct you on how to treat each moment as if it were your last. A blurb from the back cover says it best; “Most of us go to extraordinary lengths to ignore, laugh-off, or deny the fact that we are going to die, but preparing for death is one of the most rewarding and rational acts of a lifetime. It is an exercise that gives us the opportunity to deal with unfinished business and enter into a new and vibrant relationship with life.” No one knows which moment will be their last. People die at every and any age, from accidents, illness, and a myriad of other ways. If it were your last, would you want to die with your music still in you?

Even television is in on this; the Travel Channel’s “1000 Places to See Before You Die” is based on the book of the same name.  The show features a couple who left their lives behind for 14 weeks to tour the world.

You do not need to wait until you are older or find out you have a life threatening illness, to act on your bucket list.  You don’t need one more day to at least make your list.   I made a list about a year ago, and Ialthough I haven’t visited all of the places on there, I am making headway.  Just making the list can be a life altering action. 

You may find it helpful to break your list down into sections
5 things I want to do before I die.
5 places I want to visit before I die.
5 things I want to tell the 5 most important people in my life before I or they die.

You get the idea. You can use whatever categories and amounts work for you.5

Life is a blip.  As our lives go on, the years go faster and the days seem to stay just as long.  There is no perfect time or moment; stop planning, start living.  Life is the special occasion so use the good china for yourself, ask him out, let everyone you love know it, forgive whomever you need to forgive,  make the call you have been waiting to make, take that trip, can you afford not to do what you think you can’t afford.    

What’s on your list?  What are you waiting for?

The movie “Peaceful Warrior” aired on Showtime this week. A few years ago I read the excellent book it is based on “The Way of The Peaceful Warrior” by Dan Millman . The movie reminded me of some really valuable lessons the story offers, a few of which I have listed below:

I call myself a Peaceful Warrior… because the battles we fight are on the inside.

Everyone wants to tell you what to do and what’s good for you. They don’t want you to find your own answers, they want you to believe theirs. I want you to stop gathering information from the outside and start gathering it from the inside.

Death isn’t sad, the sad thing is that most people don’t live at all.

Everything has a purpose, even this, and it’s up to you to find it.

Socrates: Where are you?
Dan: Here
Socrates: What time is it?
Dan: Now
Socrates: What are you?
Dan: This moment.

This moment is the only thing that matters.

The people that are the hardest to love are usually the ones that need it the most.

3 Rules of Life

Paradox: Life is a mystery. Don’t waste time trying to figure it out.
Humor: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all.
Change: Know that nothing stays the same.

The Journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.

If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.

You haven’t yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior’s way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability–to the world, to life, and to the presence you felt. All along I’ve shown you by example that a warrior’s life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior’s sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.

Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is…The only problem in your life is your mind’s resistance to life as it unfolds.

Wake up! If you knew for certain you had a terminal illness–if you had little time left to live–you would waste precious little of it! Well, I’m telling you…you do have a terminal illness: It’s called birth. You don’t have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason–or you will never be at all.

Moderation? It’s mediocrity, fear, and confusion in disguise. It’s the devil’s dilemma. It’s neither doing nor not doing. It’s the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence-sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It’s for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die. Moderation…is lukewarm tea, the devil’s own brew.