vineri, 8 decembrie 2017
luni, 4 decembrie 2017
Lesson 1
The Science of Happiness, Lesson 1
Introduction to Happiness
On the
screen:
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“Happiness is the meaning and the
purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence”, Aristotle- “happiness
depends on ourselves”
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We want money, cars, material goods because
we think they will make us happy
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Happiness is that which is always
desirable in itself and never for something else
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The Golden Mean
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Eudaimonia versus Hedonia
-
Happiness pie chart, with two
versions…continued further down
For millennia,
thinkers, philosophers and ordinary people have wondered about the meaning of
life and happiness. Aristotle came to the remarkable, crucial conclusion that
happiness is the purpose of life. America’s founding fathers have enshrined the
pursuit of happiness in their constitution, along with other fundamental rights
(like perhaps the less inspired one of carrying guns).
Modern
science confirms some of the insights of Aristotle, Seneca and other geniuses.
What I find extraordinary in today’s world is the ability to find so much
evidence that confirms the importance of happiness.
-
Happy
people live longer, healthier lives
-
They
are more successful in their private and professional lives
-
Extensive
research proves how crucial it is to be optimistic, positive
Research
and tests include the Duchenne smile vs fake smiles, the Notre Dame nuns and so
many other studies that indicate happiness rules and its paramount role.
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Longevity, smiles and baseball
players
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Smiling players lived longer
The
happiest people have been studied and results show that they have a strong
social support in common and not money
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Happiest people and social support
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Family, friends vs $$
You now
have the ability, the instruments, the proofs that rules of happiness work and
you only need to apply them…
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“there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so” – Hamlet
Why me?
Because it worked in my case and I come from Hell, that is a communist society
and one of the worst- Dracula –
Ceausescu, modeled on a North Korean system and we all know what that brings-
little rocket man…I took part in a somewhat bloody revolution and my happiness
level went tumbling down…
With the
science of happiness is got so much better that is can share this with you
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Communism…liberty and happiness screen
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Swiss canton research
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The extract from Newsweek and the
Revolution
In the
following lessons we will get more details on what you can do to achieve not
just happiness, but FLOW, peak experiences.
Session 2
will be about Finding Your Calling
Lesson 2
Science of Happiness, Lesson 2
Finding Your Calling, Seneca, Aristotle, Mozart
After an
introduction in the Science, some call it the Art of Happiness, we can now try
to address one of the most important aspects of life:
-
Your
profession
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What
will occupy most of your waking life
Many people
are not able to choose what they do for a living. In countries like Somalia,
South Sudan, many if not most men and women cannot be picky. They must try to
put food on the table, no matter what.
But in the
more developed countries, there are large groups that do not know that they
have an important choice to make.
Some will
get to work only for the paycheck. Others will be interested in promotions and
a career that brings material benefits.
-
The happiest are those who have
found their calling and that is their main activity - screen
Once you
have found your calling and more generally the activities that you like, you
are on the way to happiness
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Finding Your Calling- on the screen
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What you like
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What you are good at
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The activities that have meaning for
you
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Where they intersect
This is how
you find your calling- by identifying what you like; you are good at and what
has meaning for you. Where these groups of endeavors intersect you have to look
and focus your attention and do that for the rest of your life. This is the
ultimate bliss, to be able to “work” at what you love and would do even if you
did not get paid to do it.
On a more
general note, you would do well to look at the pie chart with your daily,
weekly, monthly activities and the time you dedicate to each. Then, within the
limits that we all have, you should try and cycle more if that is what you
like, read positive psychology if it makes you feel better and so on.
-
A chart of activities to be inserted
here, for the
screen
Seneca has
anticipated, such a long time ago, the findings of modern science, including
the notion that time is relative and it is not so accurately measured in
minutes and hours. The great thinker has said that
-
“It is not that we have a short time
to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently
generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were
all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no
good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize
that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not
given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but
wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it. “…. To be inserted for the screen
Once you
have established what your calling is, what the activities that give you
pleasure and meaning are, you can dedicate them three hours per day and at the
end of a period of ten years you will be among the best in the world in your
domain.
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Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers – this
will show on the screen
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The Eastern culture and its roots in
the rice fields- for the screen again
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3 hours per day for ten years-
screen
In
conclusion, you find the best possible profession, the occupations that offer
you pleasure and meaning and as much as possible you dedicate more time to
them. If your job is your calling, you can enjoy a minimum of 3 hours spent at
it per day and then you have a good chance to join the ranks of
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Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, The Beatles
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We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.'-
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Rituals
In the next
session we will talk about the Rules of Happiness, then Meaning
Session 3
Session 3
Rules,
ingredients of Happiness. Exercises
First the
story of the film Limitless, wherein the hero finds a sort of happiness, but it
is based on a drug that brings the capacity of the brain to new limits…indeed,
it seems Limitless, because he can learn Portughese in some hours, to play the
piano in about the same time frame…
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Limitless - for the big screen
I think
that our possibilities are…Limitless, even if we are not capable to do the
same, acquire fantastic skills in hours. Do we really need so many languages,
play all the instruments??
And we have
some rules of happiness that we will analyze in more detail, in the next
encounters, such as
-
PERMA
- For the screen:
-
Positive
Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievement
There is
also the formula proposed by Barbara Fredrickson, in her classic masterpiece
Positivity, wherein the ratio proposed is:
-
3
: 1 for the screen
-
Awe,
inspiration, amusement, interest, hope, pride, joy, serenity, gratitude, love
We also
have from this brilliant professor and scientist the ingredients, the elements
of positivity, with love as the ultimate, paramount element.
There are
exercises that are recommended and they are the result of intensive research,
such as the univerasally appreciated:
-
Gratitude
exercise, also known as counting your blessings the
screen
-
With
the alternative formulas of letters, maybe video messages…tweets, a.o.
At the end
of each day you will write in a journal, that can be kept on the computer or in
a notebook, about three things that were positive and took place during that
day.
They can be
as important as God gave me and theothers a beautiful day, for those who are
religious, or as simple as the cherry tree is in bloom or we had the first
beautiful snow
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Three
good things, events,
John
Gottman is the ultimate expert on relationships, with an accuracy of an amazing
93.6 % !! in predictions on whethere couples will stay together or separate.
His formula
is of
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5
: 1 - for screen
-
John
Gottman
-
93.6
% accuracy
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4
Horsemen of the apocalypse
-
7
principles of making a relationship work
Next time
we are going to talk about Meaning and happiness
-
A
thing of beauty is a joy forever
Wu Wei,
miracles, ikigai
Need to
focus on what is worthwhile and eliminate negativity
-
Limitless
and flow
Psychic
energy and info to insert
Session 4,
Science of
Happiness
Session 4,
Meaning, goals, Viktor Frankl and Trump
Monty
Python is in my opinion the best comedy group ever and their films are among
the best you can see
-
Monty
Python’s Meaning of Life screen
-
Uh,
try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and
then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with
people of all creeds and nations.
For a
serious, in depth research, meditation on the subject you could read Viktor
Frankl, a scientist and Holocaust survivor and his
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Man’s
Search for Meaning screen
-
“Everything
can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose
one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
In a
previous session we have spoken about calling and the need to find what has
meaning for us, in order to establish what career, path in our professional
life we want to take
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Calling:
meaning, good at, like
There is of
course a tendency to get power, a position in society that others will envy.
But that breaks one of the rules of happiness:
-
Do
not compare yourself with others
Friedrich
Nietzsche has written about the Will to Power that animates so many, indeed
most people from the ordinary to …Donald Trump
-
Will
to Power – Friedrich Nietzsche screen
-
Donald
Trump
Donald
Trump is an intriguing example. Not a role model, for an expert from the
Harvard Medical School and other experts have stated that this man is actually
unfit for office, on account of medical “pre- exisiting “conditions.
-
Stepping
stones vs stumbling blocks
-
Resilience
and grit
He has many
faults, but it is extraordinary to see a man with few skills and capabilities
rise so high- at the very top of the free world.
He is not
the epitome of self – esteem, indeed, he has confidence issues, but he keeps
saying he is the best until that image has an impact. His resilience and
obstination have pushed him so high it is hard to believe.
Whether
that is good for manking remains to be seen. And the meaning that animates him
makes him a negative role model for this chapter, but it is an example for the
case wherein
-
Establish
your goals and pursue them with passion
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Be
the change you want to see in the world
If you
establish goals that make sense, can
have an impact on the world around you you are more than half way to becoming
happy
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No
pain no gain? screen
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Happy
on the way to the top
-
No
pain - more gain
Session 5
Science of Happiness,
Session 5 Peak Experience, Flow, Being in the Zone, Outliers
Lord of the Flies
In the last session we have spoken about meaning and its
importance in our life...that meaning is to be happy, according to Aristotle
and other majestic thinkers.
In the previous talks, calling have been mentioned and the
rules of happiness...some of them
-
Let us mention highlights from previous sessions screen
It is extraordinary to know that not only we can reach
happiness, but we can also get to the very top and enjoy:
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Peak experiences, Being in the Zone, Flow
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Calling, Outliers
This is connected with Calling and as we shall see, with
what the magnificent psychologist Malcolm Gladwell has identified in:
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Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell and
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Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
In other words, once you know what the rules of the game of
Ultimate Happiness are, you can use then in your daily activity, which should
be your calling, and with three hours per day, you become one of the best
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10,000 hours in 10 years
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Lord of the Flies by William Golding
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If there are no rules, you have nothing
Working for many years to find out what brings peak
experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has identified a few conditions sine qua
non
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Goals
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Feedback, game of tennis
Magic Mountain and the story there
Golding
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