How often have you heard someone boast that they had worked 70 hours last week? Were you impressed and envious or did you think the speaker was either exaggerating or inefficient? Why do some take pride in proving that their work is more effortful, difficult, or even painful than that of others? In too many cases, this need to feel indispensable comes at the expense of one’s health and happiness.
If you have not read it, I highly recommend Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis. One of Haidt’s metaphors, more thoroughly explained in the book, is the very accessible image of the rider (conscious reasoning self) and the elephant (automatic and unconscious self).
Thinking v. Feeling
The rider can see farther into the distance, plan and sometimes anticipate […]
“[Appreciative Inquiry] deliberately seeks to discover people’s exceptionality – their unique gifts, strengths, and qualities. It actively searches and recognizes people for their specialties – their essential contributions and achievements. And it is based on principles of equality of voice – everyone is asked to speak about their vision of the true, the good, and […]
The strengths movement is gaining momentum in education. Kids are often very insightful about their strengths and those of others. Sometimes the people closest to them understand them least well, too. Reconsidering the way we think about the behavior of the children in our care and understanding what might be the strength behind an […]
If you’ve ever been unhappy, you would have benefited from a mood-repair tool kit. It could have helped you analyze why you were feeling badly, for example, and helped you assess with that after-the-fact clarity we seem to have how you could avoid that emotion in the future. Guess what? You already […]
In education there are a number of cookbooks. They may be called “curriculum frameworks” or something similarly sturdy and substantial sounding. Some have actually been around for years despite being touted as the outcomes of education reform. They serve the same purpose as kitchen cookbooks (attempting to guarantee a consistent outcome) and as such are bound by the same limitations. However, in an education system which is under fire from many quarters, cookbook education can sometimes rightly be seen by administrators in charge of “making the numbers” as the most easily defensible program a system can take.
Positive Psychology Detractor Exorcised by Big Leap
In his new book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholia, Eric G. Wilson blends his experience as a sufferer of chronic sadness and as a scholar of the Romantic period and comes up with “proof” that negative emotions and experience lead to creativity. That is quite a leap!! This […]
‘Tis the season to give and get. This is the explicit message of the many advertisements that propel us into hypnotic holiday spending. Are your halls decked? Is your closet filled with hot fashions? Will you be giving your children the “it” gift this year? Will this be the best set of holiday celebrations ever? […]
A new study from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania seems to refute a widely held intuitive belief as well as one that has been well-researched. Despite what you may have believed, according to the new study, it turns out that money CAN buy happiness. Or maybe it says that money DOES buy happiness. Well, maybe both, but not exactly either, it turns out if you read the actual study and understand its constructs.
Topics: All, Global Policies, Money, Pathway 3 "Meaning", _2 Positive Traits
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Florida State University researcher K. Anders Ericsson is best known for his work as the expert on expertise, studying top performers in fields as diverse as medicine, athletics, chess and music. Ericsson set out to find out what makes some people the “best of the best.”
What he has discovered may contradict everything you have come […]
Neena is hoping to be back in college soon after a rather disastrous semester has left her “withdrawn/failing.” She has never been a stellar student, not even in elementary school. A review of report cards finds a pattern of “talking in class; socializing instead of working” and “inconsistent work production” “could be a good student” […]