I can feel it!
The excitement is building.
It’s like a drum beat. Slow and quiet at first, but getting louder and louder and faster and faster. Thump! Thump! Thump!
As I step back from my life and look at things from a more distance vantage point, I can see the stars and planets falling into perfect alignment.
I’m packing my bag. Getting ready for Toronto. There is change in every aspect of my life. Uncertainty is everywhere. It’s so exciting!
Yesterday, I purchased a book titled Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D. The author is the professor of Harvard’s most popular and now infamous course: how to become happier.
Instead of asking the question, “Are you happy?”, Tal Ben-Shahar recognizes that happiness isn’t binary; happiness isn’t an end point that, once achieved, is the end of a journey. Instead, the author asks, “How can we become happier?”. And certainly, there is room for all of us to grow when it comes to happiness.
I’ve only finished the first chapter and my life is changed.
Each chapter is accompanied by an exercise. Today’s exercise centered around creating new rituals. Studies show that change is hard for most people. It’s why New Year’s resolutions are rarely kept. Instead, the good doctor recommends introducting rituals. They are precise actions repeated at precise times each day. These actions become habits.
I’m introducing one ritual of my own, and one suggested by the author.
The first ritual is meditating for five minutes before bed. By making meditation a ritual based on firm values, like brushing my teeth (which is based on the value of hygiene!), I’ll be sure to meditate daily.
The second ritual, which is suggested by Tal Ben-Shahar, is writing five things each day for which you are grateful. I’m holding myself to that task by including it, as a ritual, at the end of each daily blog post. If you keep a blog or a journal, perhaps you’ll be inspired to do the same.
In the meantime, I strongly recommend that you buy Happier from your local bookstore or online. Who couldn’t use a bit more happiness in their life?
Today I am grateful for my friend Dan, for the Oreo cake that I ate, the time I spent on the beach, having a three day work week and my friend Joey, who is visiting Thursday – Sunday of this week.
May 27, 2008 at 5:51 am
I say “masterbate” a happier experience never there was, and if you have a partner there lies incredible happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment! then buy a book explaining how you got there!~ tell you friends and have a jerk-it-out party and happiness becomes secondary to experience! wow! I’ gettin’ there one stroke at a time! LOL
May 27, 2008 at 7:36 am
Today I am grateful for these five things:
1. my cat who never leaves my side
2. that I have four days left to teach before summer vacation
3. yogurt
4. my health
5. showtunes
May 27, 2008 at 9:39 am
Well, today I am feeling happy for those five things:
1. There are only 4 days left till my boyfriend coming home from Halifax.
2. Chilling with my friends at school.
3. Watching my favourite show.
4. Not skipping school.
5. Checking out your new bolg.
May 27, 2008 at 11:01 am
The progress – the absolute progress!!! Change is in the air for me as well and I’m grateful for a great many things, sometimes they seem inumerable. Be sure to check out my webpage and I’ll be sure to make a post of the things for which I am grateful.
Have fun this beautiful Tuesday!
Ciao Davey – J
May 27, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I am in awe of Tal Ben-Shahar’s work: I have just read “Happier,” and despite being removed from many of its frames of reference, was nonetheless swept by its gales of candor and insight. The book obeyed, I believe, that old Proustian dictum about thrilling voyages consisting not of seeking new landscapes but of having new eyes; as both reader and writer, no lesson is more valuable to me, and none more inspiring.
May 27, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I am reading the book too! That is too funny. Good read though. I love when a book gives you projects to work on. Helps you apply the learnings right away instead of forgetting about it.
May 27, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I am Grateful for:
1-Melissa
2-Fresh Watermelon
3-A 2 day work week
4-Anitbio0tics
5-The hope and promise of tomorrow
May 27, 2008 at 11:28 pm
I need to read this. I think I WILL start adding this to my blog each day.
Thanks for the great blog and great idea!
May 27, 2008 at 11:43 pm
this is exactly the promise we knew before we came into this life–I love it and appreciate so much that you are opening the happier floodgates as well. mr. davey-oreo-wavey!
1. canadian geese landing on the river
2. outragous laughter with Martha
3. where I am now and the expectation of where I shall be–so good, so good.
4. snowcaped peaks
5. living by seeing the world through the eyes of Source
May 28, 2008 at 8:50 am
You are like Oprah…recommending books to read! Hope those authors are giving you commission for that….hahaha
May 28, 2008 at 8:59 am
I may just check it out.
1. More people seek Peace than its opposite.
2. Spring flowers.
3. The violin concerto playing in the “depanneur” as I bought my liter of milk.
4. My son’s new jog at Ubisoft (Montreal computer animation giant).
5. The “Hi Greg” form the handsome black dude who just passed in the hall outside my office (being here now!).
Be well,
May 28, 2008 at 9:00 am
oops…”new joB”
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