Happiness keeps popping up in my life. Not just the feeling, but the topic. In fact, this morning I woke up to a text asking me how happy I was. That didn’t make me feel happy at all. More on that in a minute. Ever since my recent posts on happiness, it feels like relevant …
Read more “Happiness: It’s About Perspective”
Are you Happy? What makes you happy? These questions, although seemingly rudimentary, are more difficult to answer than you might think. As it turns out, happiness, as a condition, eludes clear understanding. Throughout history, mankind has grappled with a definition of this emotion. Perhaps the most meaningful framing of happiness is rooted in the …
Read more “Happiness: An Elusive Conundrum?”
Are you as perplexed as I regarding the acrimony in American Politics? The rift is peppered with claims of amorality and threats of calamity. It’s almost as if the opposing parties come from entirely different realities. Perhaps they do. I have gained some insight into the liberal-conservative divide thanks to Jonathon Haidt’s work, particularly his …
Read more “Human Nature at the Core of the Political Divide”
I have long suspected that a certain amount of adversity in life ultimately leads to greater degrees of happiness. This is contrary to the commonly held notion that suggests that traumatic stress is inherently harmful. It can be argued, as Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” I’m in …
Read more “Adversity – Had Enough?”
Halloween seems like an appropriate time to discuss superstition. What with ghosts and goblins and black cats and witches and all. But would not Easter or Christmas, or any other evening that a five year old loses a tooth be an equally appropriate time? In actuality, we massage magical thinking in our children with notions …
Read more “Superstitious? It’s in your genes – It’s in your culture.”
I’m sure you have heard of subliminal messages. You know that classic story where it was alleged that flashing the words DRINK COKE on a movie screen for a fraction of a second would increase cola buying behavior at the concession stand. Well, that was a hoax, but you should know that I can, in …
Read more “Are You a Robot? Can I Program Your Responses?”
I had an interesting conversation with a close family member the other day. He was struggling to understand why people in the lower echelons of socioeconomic status do not understand or act on their ability to change their circumstances. He firmly held the belief that the drive to achieve is universal and that we all …
Read more “Do we all get a fair start?”
I don’t know if you caught it the other night when you were watching the news while skimming your email, checking your twitter and RSS feeds, and updating your Facebook status, but there was an interesting story about multitasking. Silly me, who actually watches the news anymore? Anyways, much of the recent buzz on this …
Read more “Multitasking: The Illusion of Efficacy”
Why do you sometimes choose that scrumptious chocolate desert even when you are full? Why is it that you are sometimes drawn in by the lure of the couch and TV when you should be exercising or at least reading a good book? And why do you lose your patience when you are hungry or …
Read more “Willpower: What is it really?”
Last week in my article entitled Political Divide, I introduced Jonathon Haidt’s work and the theoretical framework that attempts to explain the current pervasive and seemingly intractable political acrimony within the United States. Haidt and his colleagues offer the Moral Foundations Theory, the implications of which, suggest that this divide is a result of …
Read more “Moral Foundations Theory”