№ 800. Viktor Frankl & Freedom

Viktor Frankl

№ 798. 2o2@

 

№ 784. 2 Small Happy Habits

Wilder Thoughts

 

2 Small ‘Habit Changes’ For A Noticeably Happier Life, By A Psychologist
By Mark Travers,
Contributor. Mark Travers writes about the world of psychology.


A recent study published in the Journal of Macromarketing found that people who practice voluntary simplicity, deliberately consuming less and relying more on their own skills, report higher levels of both happiness and life purpose.

After analyzing a sample of New Zealander consumers, the study found that those who opted for simpler lives reported greater happiness and a stronger sense of purpose. Notice here the usage of the word “simple” instead of “easy” or “convenient.”

This tells us the opposite story from what’s being peddled to us today. Well-being might only take root in a lack of comfort, through the deliberate act of making space for what matters. But here’s the problem: we live in a culture that sells ease as the highest good. Faster shipping, one-click purchases and all such digital shortcuts are serving the same end of smoothening the harsh edges of daily life.

The study, therefore, comes bearing a warning for our AI-powered lives: the more convenient our lives become, the less content many of us actually feel. The good news is, it also comes bearing solutions, suggesting that the route to happiness may lie not in streamlining everything, but in consciously choosing a little inconvenience.

This isn’t about austerity or giving everything up. It’s about deciding that “enough” can feel better than “more.” And when people make that decision, they tend to redirect their time and energy into areas that matter far more deeply: connection, growth and meaning.

Why Does ‘Voluntary Simplicity’ Work?

Researchers categorize happiness in two primary ways. The first is hedonic wellbeing, which is the day-to-day experience of pleasure and satisfaction. And then, there’s eudaimonic wellbeing, which is more about living in alignment with your values, feeling that your life has direction and growing as a person. Hedonic well-being is usually experienced in the short-term, while the latter evolves and, when done right, increases over the long-term.

Interestingly, by embracing voluntary simplicity and stepping away from the clutter of constant consumption, people seem freer to invest in what fuels them on both fronts.

Convenience, as helpful as it can be, also may be robbing us of our agency. When every problem is outsourced or solved instantly, we miss out on the small challenges that give us a sense of competence and creativity.

Experiencing self-sufficiency, whether that means fixing a home electrical issue, cooking for a grieving neighbor or even having a meaningful conversation instead of picking up your phone, can remind you how satisfying effort can actually feel. That satisfaction, research shows, is often what often leads to lasting happiness.

But, there’s a caveat. To find happiness, you don’t need to strip away all forms of convenience. Instead, focus on creating space for what adds to your life, whether that’s your relationships, a sense of purpose or the pride of making something with your own hands.

Here are two small, practical changes that capture this spirit of simplicity in everyday life and can make you significantly happier.

№ 797. Is ‘Joyspan’ the Key to Aging Well? A long life doesn’t matter much if you don’t enjoy it.

Amorsolo

№ 749. Meaning v. Happiness

Meaning

Yet another relatively uncontroversial element of the concept of meaningfulness in respect of individual persons is that it is logically distinct from happiness or rightness (emphasized in Wolf 2010, 2016). First, to ask whether someone’s life is meaningful is not one and the same as asking whether her life is pleasant or she is subjectively well off. A life in an experience machine or virtual reality device would surely be a happy one, but very few take it to be a prima facie candidate for meaningfulness (Nozick 1974: 42–45). Indeed, a number would say that one’s life logically could become meaningful precisely by sacrificing one’s well-being, e.g., by helping others at the expense of one’s self-interest. Second, asking whether a person’s existence over time is meaningful is not identical to considering whether she has been morally upright; there are intuitively ways to enhance meaning that have nothing to do with right action or moral virtue, such as making a scientific discovery or becoming an excellent dancer. Now, one might argue that a life would be meaningless if, or even because, it were unhappy or immoral, but that would be to posit a synthetic, substantive relationship between the concepts, far from indicating that speaking of “meaningfulness” is analytically a matter of connoting ideas regarding happiness or rightness. The question of what (if anything) makes a person’s life meaningful is conceptually distinct from the questions of what makes a life happy or moral, although it could turn out that the best answer to the former question appeals to an answer to one of the latter questions.

№ 743.Happy Habits

Pinterest

№ 653. Resilience

 

Adam Grant

 

№ 630. Time to Live More

 

Someone who lives to age 80 gets far fewer—close to the number in the title of Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. 

№ 617. La Dolce Far Niente

The idea that “doing nothing” is actually an event in and of itself. The idea that we no longer run on a treadmill of activity from getting the kids ready for school, to brushing our teeth, to conference calls, to picking up kids, fixing dinner, and bed- only to start over again. The idea that our actions day to day become influenced by our instincts and no longer by routines, shoulds, and musts.

 

 

 

№ 612. The Serenity Prayer (and Its Variants)

Senility Prayer

A New Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the people I cannot change,
which is pretty much everyone,
since I’m clearly not you, God.
At least not the last time I checked.

And while you’re at it, God,
please give me the courage
to change what I need to change about myself,
which is frankly a lot, since, once again,
I’m not you, which means I’m not perfect.
It’s better for me to focus on changing myself
than to worry about changing other people,
who, as you’ll no doubt remember me saying,
I can’t change anyway.

Finally, give me the wisdom to just shut up
whenever I think that I’m clearly smarter
than everyone else in the room,
that no one knows what they’re talking about except me,
or that I alone have all the answers.

Basically, God,
grant me the wisdom
to remember that I’m
not you.

Amen.

№ 610. Hope

Off The Leash Daily Dog Cartoons

 

I grew up with an optimist, and I married an optimist, but even the sunniest human being is barely more than a neophyte where hope is concerned. In any household, the true master of hope is the family dog.

№ 608. It’s never too Late

Pickles

 

Vera Jiji, 93, at her home in New York with her cello. “It has given me a way to communicate without using words,” she said.

№ 601. V for Volunteers

“Volunteering is one of the best, most certain ways we can find a purpose and meaning in our life,” said Val Walker, the author of “400 Friends and No One to Call: Breaking Through Isolation and Building Community.”

 

Pickles

In a study of 10,000 volunteers in Britain, about two-thirds agreed that their volunteering had helped them feel less isolated, particularly those ages 18 to 34.

№ 518. Happiness Sunday

 

I realize that one could easily read this column as a jeremiad against modern life. That isn’t my intention. (Indeed, I am a very public proponent of democratic capitalism with a modern welfare state.) Rather, I mean to appeal to all of us to remember that material prosperity has both benefits and costs. The costs come when we allow our hunger for the fruits of prosperity to blind us to the timeless sources of true human happiness: faith, family, friendship, and work in which we earn our success and serve others. Regardless of how the world might change, those have always been, and will always be, the things that deliver the satisfaction we crave.

 

№ 353. Meaning versus Happiness

"Some researchers have taken to doing that by looking at what they call “eudaimonic happiness,” or the happiness that comes from meaningful pursuits, and “hedonic happiness”—the happiness that comes from pleasure or goal fulfillment."