Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Happiness

This is a topic that came up while at work yesterday and today with my favorite videographer. He had seen a blip about happiness on Yahoo which reminded me of a book Dennis Prager wrote entitled Happiness is a Serious Problem. "Happiness is an obligation—to Yourself and to Others. Not only do we have the right to be happy, we have an obligation to be happy. Our happiness has an effect on the lives of everyone around us—it provides them with a positive enviroment in which to thrive and to be happy themselves." http://www.dennisprager.com/

I totally respect Dennis Prager. He's such a good thinker/analyzer. So fellow knitters, we all know what makes us happy. You OWE it to your spouse, room mate, significant other, mother/father (whoever you live with), not to mention yourself, to go out and buy more yarn, needles, knitting books, maybe a yarn ball winder, swift...

The article Mr. Videographer was referring to can be found here: (by Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer http://biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/060321/032106_sahadi.html?.v=1)

Some highlights:

..."evidence suggests happiness begets success. Then success can bolster your happiness, which then can breed even more success"... "The research evidence supports the notion that it is the amount of time that people experience positive affect that defines happiness, not necessarily the intensity of that affect," the authors explain in an article detailing their analysis.

"So a little joy-light every day might yield better results than joy-concentrate every few months. "

And I don't want you to miss MrsBear's comments: "One of my favorite thinkers, Joseph Campbell put it this way: 'If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are -- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.'

"Not that we do only what makes us happy, and pursue life with no thought than to gratify ourselves, but that we put passion into what we do, and give ourselves fully to it."

2 comments:

Mrs. Bear said...

One of my favorite thinkers, Joseph Campbell put it this way: If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are -- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

Not that we do only what makes us happy, and pursue life with no thought than to gratify ourselves, but that we put passion into what we do, and give ourselves fully to it.

Amen, Joe!

RhettaRic said...

Ooooh! You put things so well!!