Happy Science

Don't worry, be happy!
Recognizing negative ideas and checking them against real evidence can defuse many pessimistic assumptions before they affect our happiness

Maybe there's a science to happiness. A set of principles we could study, master, then apply to the disappointments, disasters and dirty dishes in our own lives.

Whether gloomy by nature or not, we'd at least have some emotional hydraulics to lift ourselves out of despair after the inevitable arguments at home, mess-ups at work, personal insults. We might even learn how to enjoy ourselves and thrive doing work we thought miserable.
Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, is determined to find the principles that underlie the good life. Seligman is a driving force behind positive psychology, the growing effort among sociologists, economists and other social scientists to study how humans succeed, develop virtue and achieve fulfilment.

He has spent 20 years researching depression and his findings have helped influence how therapists treat the condition. That background gives Seligman the authority to talk about happiness without being written off as a self-help guru or Pollyanna. His recently released book, Authentic Happiness (Free Press; $39.50), details the research findings and how they apply to daily life.


"I believe psychology has done very well in working out how to understand and treat disease," Seligman said in a recent interview. "But I think that is literally half-baked. If all you do is work to fix problems, to alleviate suffering, then by definition you are working to get people to zero, to neutral.
"What I'm saying is, 'Why not try to get them to plus-two, or plus-three?' Even people in great pain want more than to merely endure. They want the good things in life, just like the rest of us."

As a field of study, positive psychology is a work in progress. For one thing, as other psychologists have observed, most measures of happiness are self-reported questionnaires, which can be difficult to interpret. A person who calls herself "very happy" on a survey may or may not be truly content. For another, the research has yet to explore the positive qualities of universal emotional states such as envy, regret and frustration.
"Many of my patients would love to lift their moods," said Alan Rappoport, a therapist in Menlo Park, Calif. "The problem is that they're stuck. They know they ought to be able to learn to be happy; they just can't yet get there."

Seligman has tried to provide a blueprint. To make ourselves happier, he argues, we need to learn two important skills -- how to mind our thoughts, moment to moment. And how to forget ourselves altogether.
In previous work, Seligman has described an effective technique for countering what he refers to as "catastrophic thoughts."

The trick is first to recognize the despairing idea -- "I'm the weakest employee in the department, and I'm probably going to get fired" -- and then check it against real evidence, as if the statement were being uttered by another person trying to make you miserable. "Did anyone actually say I was doing consistently poor work? So my last project fell apart -- yet the one before that was praised highly. Given the expectations, everyone in the department is struggling."

By arguing with yourself in this way, Seligman has shown, you can separate beliefs from facts, defusing many pessimistic assumptions by editing them according to logic and evidence. In effect, you act as your own therapist, talking hard sense to yourself precisely when your thoughts begin to darken.

The same kind of self-disputing can be applied to almost any variety of gloominess.
Psychologists find, for example, that depressed people often turn small foibles and mistakes into stinging self-criticism. If they get a bad grade, it's not because they didn't prepare: It's because they're not very smart.
If they lose a tennis match, it's time to quit: They've never been athletic. If they actually win, or get a good grade, it's all luck.

In studies during the 1970s and '80s, Seligman and other investigators showed that depressed people who learn to recognize and disarm this kind of reflexive pessimism and self-attacking can free themselves of feelings of worthlessness, fatigue and other symptoms of the condition. They are no longer depressed. They have pulled themselves from the depths.

Seligman argues that they can get to even higher ground, using techniques that rely partly on the work of the Hungarian-born psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a leading researcher in the field of creativity. In experiments using moment-to-moment mood monitoring, Csikszentmihalyi has shown that creatively successful adults and teenagers tend to experience regular periods of what he calls "flow."
A widely recognized psychological state, flow is the total absorption that occurs when people are involved in an activity for its own sake, using their skills to solve a puzzle, complete a job or play a game, whether tennis or chess. It's the equivalent of an athlete being "in the zone" or a jazz player losing himself in a melody.
During "flow" moments, one's ego and sense of time are set aside. "People who are in flow don't really feel anything in the moment," Csikszentmihalyi said, "but we have good evidence that afterward they feel very satisfied.
They think, 'Gee, that was wonderful.' " Not surprisingly, people who love their jobs and their families report high levels of flow and satisfaction, he said.

Seligman maintains that the way to find more flow is to first recognize our natural skills, what he calls "signature strengths." As opposed to innate gifts, such as physical beauty or lightning quickness, the strengths are moral qualities valued in almost all cultures, including valour, originality, perseverance and more than a dozen others.

Each of us scores high in two or three of these qualities, and it's when expressing them that we're most likely to enter a state of flow, Seligman believes.
Who can flow through a miserable job? Not everyone, perhaps. Seligman, however, believes that even tedious work can be "re-crafted" to allow for some flow.
"Look at what hairdressers do," he said. "They change what could be a very menial job into something they're really good at. These are people who would score very high on social intelligence as a signature strength."

Flow should not be mistaken for purpose. In the end, Seligman says, there's deeper fulfilment in joining our signature strengths to a larger cause, such as education, science, justice, religion.

The evidence for this comes in part from surveys showing that deeply religious people report high levels of life satisfaction and mental health. They often demonstrate that performing an act of generosity - helping someone with homework or writing a long letter to a friend - provides sensations of contentment that last measurably longer than a good meal or a good movie.
Perhaps it's not surprising that people who report being very happy also have many good friends to write or call.

"The good life," writes Seligman, "consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths everyday in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power or goodness. "

B-ALERT by Mark Victor Hansen

Are you tired of just not having enough fun in your life? Do you feel liketoo much of your life is tied up with responsibilities, both at the workplace and at home as well?

If you have any stress or concern about the quality of life you're currently experiencing (or not experiencing at all!) here's an easy system that will bring focus and balance to your life. We call it theB-ALERT System for Optimum Balance.

As you know, the word "alert" means to be at the ready, using intelligence,being on guard, conscious and prepared. Obviously, being at the ready every day and using intelligence will keep you mindful of your priorities andstate of balance.

As you apply this system day after day for an entire month, be aware of any resistance you feel; consciously work at letting these mental blocks go, and you'll begin to see big change begin to take place immediately.

B is for Blueprint

A blueprint is a simple map for your day. Set aside just 10 minutes toprepare your blueprint for the day. Either do it the night before, or get up a few minutes early to put your plan in place. As you develop your day'sblueprint, focus on your most important activities, such as whom you will meet with and the purpose and objective of each meeting. Set specific timelimits for your appointments. Also, review projects to ensure you've given them enough time in the day for completion.

A is for Action

The amount of action you put into your day will directly determine yoursuccess. Just make sure that you're following that blueprint - don't allow yourself to be sidetracked by minor emergencies or interruptions. Concentrate on the activities that produce the greatest results for you anddelegate.

L is for Learning

Every day, take time to expand your knowledge. This doesn't require severalhours of study. Consciously open your window of curiosity and you'll beastounded at what clambers in that window through the day. Then, set aside 20 minutes to a half-hour each morning to read stimulating, challengingbooks that discuss canny motivation, biographies and autobiographies of people you admire, and "brain work" books that increase your consciousness and skills. Lastly, invest in audiotapes for the commute to and from work.Even 20 minutes a day will put you 100 hours a year ahead of people listening to crazy D.J. or negative news.

E is for Exercise.

Creating a balance in your life means you treat your health with respect. Set a 30-day goal, no exceptions, to get through initial exercise - stretching and a brisk 15-minute walk around the block is a great start. If you can't find the motivation anywhere in your body, call a personaltrainer and have him or her meet you for that walk around the block. They're inexpensive on an hourly basis, loaded with stretching and nutritional information, and fun to converse with.

R is for Relaxing

Do you get physically tired during your workday? An excellent way to preserve your energy is a TPM - Twenty-Five Peaceful Minutes. Whether you can shut your door and actually lay on your floor, or climb into your car for a few reclined minutes of deep breathing, the TPM will work wonders for your afternoon and evening hours. For the bigger relaxation picture, completely shut down the business cells, pagers and faxes when you leave the office every evening - and when you take a day, a week or even a month away from the workplace. A handy way to keep work from creeping into thepicture - in your 10 minutes of "B for Blueprint," schedule activities around yourself and your family on evenings and weekends and follow through!

T is for Thinking

This isn't just average, ordinary thinking - this is reflective thinking. At the end of your day, take a mental snapshot of your day. How did you do?What did you do well? Are there adjustments you can make? Focus daily on the progress you've made. By taking just five minutes to complete this exercise every evening, you'll develop unusual clarity for what is working and not working in your life.As you instill this six-step system into your day, review your progress each evening. Did you work through all six? Keep track of any steps you missed or skipped over - this alone will tell you something about yourresistance pockets! As always, ease into this new habit - don't be too hard on yourself. The more you practice, the better results you will have.

Engineer Joke

People who work in the fields of science and technology are not like other people. This can be frustrating to the nontechnical people who have to deal with them. The secret to coping with technology-oriented people is to understand their motivations. This chapter will teach you everything you need to know. I learned their customs and mannerisms by observing them, much the way Jane Goodall learned about the great apes, but without the hassle of grooming.Engineering is so trendy these days that everybody wants to be one. The word "engineer" is greatly overused. If there's somebody in your life who you think is trying to pass as an engineer, give him this test to discern the truth.

ENGINEER IDENTIFICATION TEST

You walk into a room and notice that a picture is hanging crooked. You...
Straighten it.
Ignore it.
Buy a CAD system and spend the next six months designing a solar-powered, self-adjusting picture frame while often stating aloud your belief that the inventor of the nail was a total moron. The correct answer is "C" but partial credit can be given to anybody who writes "It depends" in the margin of the test or simply blames the whole stupid thing on "Marketing."

SOCIAL SKILLS

Engineers have different objectives when it comes to social interaction. "Normal" people expect to accomplish several unrealistic things from social interaction:
Stimulating and thought-provoking conversation
Important social contacts
A feeling of connectedness with other humans In contrast to "normal" people, engineers have rational objectives for social interactions:
Get it over with as soon as possible.
Avoid getting invited to something unpleasant.
Demonstrate mental superiority and mastery of all subjects.

FASCINATION WITH GADGETS

To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories: (1) things that need to be fixed, and (2) things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them. Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems. Normal people don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.No engineer looks at a television remote control without wondering what it would take to turn it into a stun gun. No engineer can take a shower without wondering if some sort of Teflon coating would make showering unnecessary. To the engineer, the world is a toy box full of sub-optimized and feature-poor toys.

FASHION AND APPEARANCE

Clothes are the lowest priority for an engineer, assuming the basic thresholds for temperature and decency have been satisfied. If no appendages are freezing or sticking together, and if no genitalia or mammary glands are swinging around in plain view, then the objective of clothing has been met. Anything else is a waste.

LOVE OF "STAR TREK"

Engineers love all of the "Star Trek" television shows and movies. It's a small wonder, since the engineers on the starship Enterprise are portrayed as heroes, occasionally even having sex with aliens. This is much more glamorous than the real life of an engineer, which consists of hiding from the universe and having sex without the participation of other life forms.

DATING AND SOCIAL LIFE

Dating is never easy for engineers. A normal person will employ various indirect and duplicitous methods to create a false impression of attractiveness. Engineers are incapable of placing appearance above function.Fortunately, engineers have an ace in the hole. They are widely recognized as superior marriage material: intelligent, dependable, employed, honest, and handy around the house. While it's true that many normal people would prefer not to date an engineer, most normal people harbor an intense desire to mate with them, thus producing engineer-like children who will have high-paying jobs long before losing their virginity.Male engineers reach their peak of sexual attractiveness later than normal men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos in their mid thirties to late forties. Just look at these examples of sexually irresistible men in technical professions:
Bill Gates.
MacGyver.
Etcetera.
Female engineers become irresistible at the age of consent and remain that way until about thirty minutes after their clinical death. Longer if it's a warm day.

HONESTY

Engineers are always honest in matters of technology and human relationships. That's why it's a good idea to keep engineers away from customers, romantic interests, and other people who can't handle the truth.Engineers sometimes bend the truth to avoid work. They say things that sound like lies but technically are not because nobody could be expected to believe them. The complete list of engineer lies is listed below.
"I won't change anything without asking you first."
"I'll return your hard-to-find cable tomorrow."
"I have to have new equipment to do my job."
"I'm not jealous of your new computer."

FRUGALITY

Engineers are notoriously frugal. This is not because of cheapness or mean spirit; it is simply because every spending situation is simply a problem in optimization, that is, "How can I escape this situation while retaining the greatest amount of cash?"

POWERS OF CONCENTRATION

If there is one trait that best defines an engineer it is the ability to concentrate on one subject to the complete exclusion of everything else in the environment. This sometimes causes engineers to be pronounced dead prematurely. Some funeral homes in high-tech areas have started checking resumes before processing the bodies. Anybody with a degree in electrical engineering or experience in computer programming is propped up in the lounge for a few days just to see if he or she snaps out of it.

RISK

Engineers hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they can. This is understandable, given that when an engineer makes one little mistake, the media will treat it like it's a big deal or something.
EXAMPLES OF BAD PRESS FOR ENGINEERS
Hindenberg.
Space Shuttle Challenger.
SPANet(tm)
Hubble space telescope.
Apollo 13.
Titanic.
Ford Pinto.
Corvair.
The risk/reward calculation for engineers looks something like this:
RISK: Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent people.
REWARD: A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame.
Being practical people, engineers evaluate this balance of risks and rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing. The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated to explain.
If that approach is not sufficient to halt a project, then the engineer will fall back to a second line of defense: "It's technically possible but it will cost too much."

EGO

Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers:
-How smart they are.
-How many cool devices they own.
The fastest way to get an engineer to solve a problem is to declare that the problem is unsolvable. No engineer can walk away from an unsolvable problem until it's solved. No illness or distraction is sufficient to get the engineer off the case. These types of challenges quickly become personal -- a battle between the engineer and the laws of nature.Engineers will go without food and hygiene for days to solve a problem. (Other times just because they forgot.) And when they succeed in solving the problem they will experience an ego rush that is better than sex--and I'm including the kind of sex where other people are involved.
Nothing is more threatening to the engineer than the suggestion that somebody has more technical skill. Normal people sometimes use that knowledge as a lever to extract more work from the engineer. When an engineer says that something can't be done (a code phrase that means it's not fun to do), some clever normal people have learned to glance at the engineer with a look of compassion and pity and say something along these lines: "I'll ask Bob to figure it out. He knows how to solve difficult technical problems."
At that point it is a good idea for the normal person to not stand between the engineer and the problem. The engineer will set upon the problem like a starved Chihuahua on a pork chop.

Travel Tips

• Avoid rooms on ground floor that is easily accessible by outsiders. Ask for room close to elevators. Avoid rooms next to emergency stairs, stairwells are good hiding places for suspicious characters and allow them to come and go undetected
• Duct tape can be handy. Hem up a skirt. Tape everything together if you're leaving luggage in the room for a few days. Remove lint
• Don't look like a damsel in distress. Plan daily itenerary before leaving room, study the map, familiarise with foreign currency, always act confidently. Don't look vulnerable
• In a club/restaurant, deter unwanted male attention by avoiding eye contact with single-and-seeking men. Fake wedding band can also signal you're not interested and don't want to be bothered
• Sarong is the most versatile peice of clothing. Doubles as beach sheet, towel, skirt, dress, headdress, curtain.
• Store valuables in tampon or maxi-pad box, nobody wants to go digging there
• A sleepsack weighs almost nothing and takes up little room in your bag. Keeps between you and questionable bedding, can also double up as beach mat.