I love your “research” with Jonah! His innocence is so refreshing; I want to give him a hug. And Jonah’s insights are so great; he makes it clear that happiness involves effort. And the “three good things” exercise really helps boost our happiness!

Thanks Jen,

David

All the best, Doug

“…eating ice cream, masturbating, having a massage, or using drugs…”

(I need a new hobby).

Look at how Time magazine article backhands the MAPP movement in this recent article from the FRIENDS- OF-PP LISTSERV.

“His program (Csikszentmihalyi’s)… isn’t about quick fixes. Rather than teaching people how to be happy or educating happiness coaches, the school will train graduate students first in statistical methodology and then in specific research techniques…” etc etc.

Happiness coaches are pioneers. So-called quick fixes are necessary for a desperate population, many of who are suicidal or merely piddling their lives away living far below their potential for lack of simple SWB skills and cannot wait years to prove through meta-analytic studies the precise value of each intervention. A good plan now is better than a perfect plan in five years.

Just exactly how many studies do you need to use toilet paper? Yeah, but what if bumwiping doesn’t eliminate 100 percent of the bacteria? Science that you can base key decisions on evolves like snails mate: very slowly. I’ll be dealing with a mid-life crisis before happiness science approaches ‘definitive’ whatever that means. You all provide timely experiments for everyone to use and keep or reject as we see fit.

We base life and death decisions on anecdotal evidence every single day, like when driving to work. Will that deer jump in front of me? Don’t know, I’ll slow down and go around the goofy bugger. The trial and error of daily action research can provide guidance for us mere mortals, bringing a little bit of empiricism to the average person and giving a sense of whether our actions are effective. Just as long as our ‘black boxes’ don’t fool us into believing the grounded exercises, like the 3+ and disputing, are just quick fixes.

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this one and as usual somebody beat me to it by a couple thousand years. Here goes anyway.

Simming.

Distinct from the broader terms of meditation and imagery, simming could mean mixing sensory input both mental and physical-external to rehearse & practice a skill. Whereas with meditation perhaps you monitor your breath, in simming you construct extremely vivid mental sights, smells, tastes, touch, motion in a mental movie with sensory benefits. It is focused daydreaming for the purpose of rehearsal and physical practice.

Sports psychologists talk about imagery, but I think simming could expand this vital concept further. For example, maybe you now include real world motion into the simagery. You actually get off your bum and physically rehearse the movements that form part of the skill. In effect you are doubling the practice, because you are mentally focusing on the moment while tracing physical actions with your body.

This has the potential of incorporating more moments of flow or seconds in the zone. Again a key difference between simming and imagery is the potential inclusion of SimProps.

The impetus for SimProps came from a combo of playing The Sims, the popular computer game and thinking about medieval memory palaces. Also called the method of loci, this mnemonic device has us walk through real world places to remember names, dates, faces, whatever information we need to regurgitate. With SimProps you put together a physical journey of cues for the Simagery that you want to conjure up and rehearse.

How does this fit with happiness/the Three Blessings (3+)?
Well, I think incorporating more vivid mental images would increase the mnemonic value of the 3+ dramatically. I forget what you tell me, so the saying goes. I forget part of what I hear & see. What I practice I remember forever. So we could form a sort of mental palace of Good Things that we could make a fabric of our existence every single day.

The habit of “walking the SimProperty” could jolt us out of negativity and strongly complement the 3+ exercise.

An example of a SimProp is your daily commute: if you consider the door to your house a memory Peg, the walkway to your car another peg, the carwash on the right of the road another peg, all the way to your jobsite the final peg, then you start practicing adding your Good Things to the pegs. That’s great. Then you sim it each day until you know the good events like the back of your hand. You could recite, relive and rehearse them in your sleep. You have become “one with the simagery”. Art now becomes life and life art.

Finally, this could apply to past, present and future events, so that you could incorporate forgiveness practice, gratitude, hope & optimism, savoring, etc. once you got the basics well mastered.

My wife is a guidance counselor at the elementary level and I swapped email correspondence with Jon Haidt & Karen Reivich (among others) about how to tap into the Resiliency and happiness exercises for the vulnerable and impressionable younger ages. Isn’t prevention at least as powerful if not moreso than cure?

Well, no one has an answer except social modeling…show the monkey and see the monkey dance like you! I can’t wait for the big brains to delve into this elementary topic.

You are doing some extremely important action research!
Keep going and sharing with us.

Your experience with Jonah reminds me of a friend who complained that she didn’t know how to have fun. I suggested that she ask her 9-year-old son. When she did, he wrote her a manual of things to do — many of which were doing things with him.

Thank you for bringing us Jonah’s wisdom. Jonah, thanks for sharing.

Kathryn

It’s just so real and fun. My parents used to say when I was a kid that kids know the real depth of things. They know what things really are, the truth behind things. I see that here.

Jonah, I especially like your point about how you shouldn’t just come in and stuff and make someone do the exercise - only if they want to, and they might have ideas about how they enjoy doing the exercise. Finally, I call this “three great things” also just like your “three good things.” Thanks, you joint authors!