Monthly Archives: January 2008

Jan 24

The Secret to Happiness

What is your answer to this question…?

Which person do you think is happier– a person who has won the lottery one year after he/she won, OR a person who has become a paraplegic one year after he/she lost the use of his/her legs?

It seems sort of obvious to most that if, given that choice themselves, they’d choose the first believing that winning the lottery would make them happier than being wheelchair bound. In an actual study of both groups of people, they actually all reported the same level of happiness in their life.

I recently watched a 20-minute presentation by Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert on www.ted.com (Technology, Entertainment, Design– which is an annual conference where intelligent, innovative people in their field come together to share ideas) about happiness and I thought it was good enough to write a post about.

Studies have shown, that pretty much any life event that we believe at the time could be life-changing (getting a promotion or not, failing or passing a college exam, moving or not moving, breaking up with a partner or staying together), have no measurable impact on the happiness of our lives 3 months after the event takes place. Of course those things do change the course of your life, but they don’t impact your level of happiness.

In essence, Dr. Gilbert suggests that we have a “psychological immune system” that lets us feel real, enduring happiness, even when things don’t go as planned. He calls this kind of happiness “synthetic happiness,” and he says it’s “every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for.”

Gilbert breaks happiness into two categories. “Synthetic happiness” vs. “natural happiness.” Natural happiness is the happiness we feel when we get something we want or put effort into striving for– we interview for a job and get it, we hope that cute guy will ask us out and he does, we apply for a loan and get it. Synthetic happiness is the happiness we create when we don’t get what we want– for example, we DON’T get a job and instead get a different job and then say “Wow, I’m really glad I didn’t get that first job because the second one was so much better and if I had gotten that first job, I wouldn’t have accepted the second one.”

Most people feel that “synthetic happiness” is inferior to “natural happiness.” We are predisposed to hear our friend talking about how much happier he is that he DIDN’T get a job he wanted and we react by thinking “Poor guy… he’s trying to be positive about the situation because he really wanted the job he didn’t get.”

Gilbert proposes that our thinking about synthetic happiness being inferior is actually wrong. In reality, our friend isn’t convincing himself he’s happy, he’s experiencing true happiness about the situation.

He also suggests that freedom to choose is the friend of natural happiness but the enemy of synthetic happiness. There was an experiment at Harvard where they asked photography students to take two photos they chose as the best two photos they’ve taken out of several rolls of film. Then they split the students into two groups. The first group is told they have to give one picture up, can only keep one, but if they ever change their mind, they can swap the photos and ask to exchange it for the one they gave up. The other group is told they have to give up one of the photos, they have two minutes to make the decision, and they’ll never see the photo they gave up ever again. The first group, it was discovered, spent a great deal of time, even after the decision was made, wondering if they’d made the right decision, wondering if they should exchange it for the other, and even after the deadline to exchange it had passed, showed they weren’t as happy with their decision to keep the photo they did as the students who had to quickly make a choice and “got stuck” with the one they chose. That second group was actually happier with their chosen photo months later.

The

point is… the human brain has the ability to be happy regardless of the situation due to synthetic happiness. Yet, we place so much importance on natural happiness (which is much harder to achieve than synthetic happiness) that we can actually cripple our ability to experience

synthetic happiness by this obsession with natural happiness.

I find that to be good news. The more we agonize over a decision, the more less happy we feel with the decision afterward. When we aren’t given a choice, we accept our circumstances and move on.

I can relate to this very well. I’m the type of person who feels happiest when I’ve made a decision and can move on accepting that the decision is what it is. I don’t like being in situations where I am “in limbo” and weighing option after option. For example, a year ago when Christopher and I were out looking at apartments to move in together, Christopher– who is very comfortable with being in limbo– kept wanting to look at different places. Weekend after weekend of touring apartments, I found myself getting more and more stressed and hating the process. Christopher could see me getting stressed and not really recognizing WHY I was feeling like that, we decided just to keep our own places for the time being.

Anyway, for me, watching the 20-minute presentation was well worth the time. I actually watched it twice to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Recognizing that synthetic happiness is a real thing and not just something someone pretends to have to “justify” not getting what they originally wanted helps me keep in perspective that there are very few “live or die” choices and agonizing over decisions will actually make you less happy with your ultimate decision than if you didn’t.

Jan 21

20 reasons I’d be a good trophy wife

1. I laugh at all jokes, even ones that are sexist or simply not funny, just to make your friends feel good about themselves.

2. I look pretty in expensive clothes and don’t mind if other women hate me for bragging about how much money you make.

3. I don’t eat much which keeps the grocery bill down and prefer eating out anyway.

4. I have experience and expertise in hiring maids, nannies, and gardeners.

5. I don’t mind using your credit card to have the car detailed a few times a month so people don’t think “you let your wife drive around town in a dirty car.”

6. I always shop at the same high-end boutiques, play tennis at the same country club, and get treatments at the same spa, so you’ll always know where you can find me in an emergency if I’ve forgotten to charge my cell phone.

7. I totally stay out of custody arguments you might be having with your ex-wife and the mother of your children by pretending they aren’t going on.

8. If I don’t understand something, I shake my head and pretend to understand it anyway.

9. I like letting the man make all the important decisions like how to support us, where to take us on vacation, and which contractor we should hire to build our addition.

10. I can use the skills I developed in the three months I spent doing online interior design school to continuously redecorate our house so it never seems “dated.”

11. I don’t complain that you spend a lot of time at work because I can entertain myself for hours by just flipping through Vogue.

12. I won’t mess up the order of the financial, business, sports, and World News section of your paper in the morning since I only read the funnies.

13. When we go to the grocery store, I won’t waste your time giving the cashier coupons I’ve clipped from the paper to save you money—I don’t do that.

14. I’ll make sure my skin always looks radiant for you by scheduling deluxe European facials twice a week and buying the most expensive skin care products on the market.

15. I don’t mind spending a little extra to have things delivered to me, so you don’t have to worry about me getting in any fender benders during the day while I’m running errands.

16. If we play chess, I’ll always let you win. The same goes for checkers, Scrabble, Yahtzee, Poker, Gin, Rummy, Connect Four, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Operation, Battleship, and Bingo.

17. I’ll never get you thrown out of a casino in Vegas because I don’t know how to count cards. Which also means you can always beat me at Blackjack.

18. I don’t understand why some wives complain about football. I actually like heated box seats.

19. I don’t need a big wedding to make me happy. I’m perfectly fine with just 300 of our closest friends enjoying an intimate little celebration on some private island somewhere. It doesn’t have to be overblown. After all, it’s about our love for each other, not the wedding.

20. Working at a job tends to make me tired and irritable. I never want you to have to deal with ‘crabby’ me, so I’ll never get a job.

21. A lot of guys that I’ve slept with have told me that I’m good in bed, so you can be sure I’ll rock your world.

22. I spend a lot of time at the mall, so if you ever need a new tie or something, I can pick it up for you no problem.

23. I didn’t go to college, so I won’t stick you with any student loan debt or complain that my pricey education didn’t pay off. I also won’t root against your favorite college teams.

24. I don’t follow the stock market so I won’t get all glum when your investments are down.

25. I believe marriage is a two-way street. Some women don’t realize what this means. It means that you need a car with fast acceleration so you don’t get into a wreck if you need to get into a different lane.

Jan 21

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Just a quickie to say Happy Martin Luther King Day.

For me, Martin Luther King Day will always remind me of the big earthquake in California that demo’d the 10 Fwy back in 1994. I was in college at the time, living in an apartment on the tenth floor of a downtown high rise, and it was the first earthquake I’d ever been in… a very memorable experience to say the least.

To celebrate, here are some facts about MLK Day that you might not have known:

MLK Day is always celebrated on the third Monday in January. That Monday was chosen because it was close to Dr. Martin Luther King jr.’s birthday which is January 15th.

Although most of us see the holiday today as marking MLK’s fight for civil rights, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was founded as a holiday promoted by labor unions in contract negotiations. After King’s death, Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, introduced a bill in Congress to make King’s birthday a national holiday, highlighting King’s activism on behalf of trade unionists.

Six million signatures were collected for a petition to Congress to pass the law turning MLK Day into a national holiday, termed by a 2006 The Nation article as “…the largest petition in favor of an issue in United States History.”

Overall, in 2007, 33% of employers gave employees MLK Day off, while 33% of large employers over 1,000 and 32% of smaller employers gave time off. The observance is most popular amongst nonprofit organizations and least popular among factories and manufacturers.

In Utah, the holiday was known as “Human Rights Day” until the year 2000, when the Utah State Legislature voted to change the name of the holiday from Human Rights Day to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. In that same year Governor Michael O. Leavitt signed the bill officially naming the holiday “Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.”

In Virginia, the holiday was added on to Lee-Jackson Day, a day meant to honor Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and became Lee-Jackson-King Day. The incongruous nature of the holiday, which simultaneously celebrated the lives of Confederate Army generals and a civil rights icon, did not escape the notice of Virginia lawmakers. In 2000, a Martin Luther King Day was established in Virginia.

On January 17, 2000, Martin Luther King Day was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time. Prior to that date, New Hampshire and Arizona had not observed the day and received a great deal of pressure and criticism for choosing not to. After a 1992 proposition to recognize the holiday in Arizona did not pass, the NFL boycotted hosting Super Bowl XXVII at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe.

The national Martin Luther King Day of Service was started by former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Harris Wofford and Atlanta Congressman John Lewis, who co-authored the King Holiday and Service Act. The federal legislation challenges Americans to transform the King Holiday into a day of citizen action through volunteer service in honor of Dr. King. The federal legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 23, 1994.

Jan 15

Privacy In Public

Even Christine once a staunch ACLU supporter (now a self proclaimed “Moderate” – which pretty much automatically disqualifies oneself for ACLU membership) has lost faith in an organization that seems on the surface (their title) that it should be about things that both her and I tend to care about. (Keeping and expanding our freedoms).

The ACLU lates and greatest cause is to argue that people are entitled to privacy even when they are in public. I know what your thinking.. “That doesn’t so bad”. Well what about if that privacy right the ACLU is arguing for is the right to have private sex in a public restroom. Yes.. you read that right… In an effort to help Sen. Larry Craig, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that people who have sex in public bathrooms have an expectation of privacy.

While I will give the ACLU this point, technicallly they may be correct because in the past courts have ruled that people who have sex in public restrooms.. (it pains me to write that the courts have ruled on this before)… do have an expectation of privacy. However where I start to disagree at least in spirit with their argument is when they go on to say when Craig tapped his feet and swiped his hand under a stall divider in a way that signaled he wanted sex, that he wasn’t doing anything would have called attention to itself in a closed stall in the public restroom. Granted… I can’t say I’ve ever wonderd what was going on behind closed bathroom stalls, nor do I ever really think I will.

Look I’m all for people doing whatever they want.. infact I’m all for people have sex in plublic places.. but if you get caught your busted.. if you happen to be the unlucky guy who tries to get sucked off by the undercover cop in the next stall and you get busted.. man up and take your $300 fine. This really shouldn’t be protected undered privacy rights.