The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (2009)

Warning: This is not the book for you if you believe that working for goals like social justice, peace, or the environment is more important than happiness.

Gretchen Rubin has not experienced a grave injustice, a major personal tragedy, nor suffered a terrible illness.  She has not lost her home, job, money, or a member of the family. 

In fact, Rubin believes herself to have so much to be happy about.  She is married to the love of her life, has two delightful daughters, is a writer living in New York, and has close relationships with her family.

She, however, “suffer bouts of melancholy, insecurity, listlessness, and free floating guilt.” She is experiencing what she calls, a “midlife malaise – a recurrent sense of discontent and almost feeling of disbelief, ‘Can this be me?’ ”.

Rubin’s “The Happiness Project” is not so much about searching for happiness but of wanting to be happier in a state of plenty. Rubin embarked on a year-long project to find answers.  She did not do this by travelling around the world like Hector in Francois Lelord’s, “Hector and the Search for Happiness”; neither did she reside abroad for a time, similar to what Jamie Cat Callan undertook in, “Bonjour Happiness” to unlock the secret to joie de vivre.

Instead, Rubin gathered an armload of books and applied what she learned  to her day-to-day activities (Jamie, her husband, has been a favorite guinea pig in her experiments/resolutions).  Her monthly projects looked like this:

January – Boost energy

February – Remember love

March – Aim higher

April – Lighten up

May – Be serious about play

June – Make time for friends

July – Buy some happiness

August – Contemplate the heavens

September – Pursue a passion

October – Pay attention

November – Keep a contented heart

December – Boot camp perfect

Rubin is an engaging writer, affable, honest, self-deprecating in some parts, and defensive in other segments.   She has taken pains to explain why a Yale law school graduate like her who used to be editor of the Yale Law Review and who clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is not out there litigating or closing multi-million dollar deals, but chosen instead to write books.

Reading “The Happiness Project”, one is struck why people like Rubin, who look like they have it all, while not unhappy, are not quite happy. Rubin partly provides the explanation in asking a rhetorical question: “Now that our country has achieved a certain standard of prosperity, people set their goals on higher things. Isn’t it admirable that people want to be happy? If happiness isn’t the point, what is?”

There are neither outstanding revelations nor mind-boggling new theories in “The Happiness Project”.  It is however, replete with all sorts of entertaining statistics, studies, and quotations.

-          An extra hour of sleep each night would do more for a person’s daily happiness than getting a US$60,000 raise

-          Just by exercising 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week for 6 weeks, persistently tired people boost their energy

-          Happier people make more effective leaders

-          “Where there is no wood, the fire goes out; and where there is no talebearer, strife ceases.” (Proverbs 26:20)

-          “Fundamental attribution error” is a psychological phenomenon in which we tend to view other people’s actions as reflections of their characters and to overlook the power of the situation to influence their actions, whereas with ourselves, we recognize the pressure of circumstances

-          “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” (Woody Allen)

-          “On the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell short of it, yet as I was, by endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been had I not attempted it.” (Benjamin Franklin)
 

The book is akin to walking in a sunlit park with birds chirping and flowers all a-blooming. There are no dark demons in this book. The only hints of evil were references to gossip mongering and Jamie’s medical condition.

 Perhaps a more apt title to this book would be, “The Happier Project”.

POSTSCRIPT:  I need to say this.  Rubin did her readers a disservice when she included in her book a considerable number of comments from her blog. To paraphrase Matthew 22:21, “Render unto the blog, the observations of the bloggers and unto the book the remarks of the blurbers.”

Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord (2002)

Hector is a young psychiatrist who is not very satisfied with himself because he couldn’t make his patients happy. He thus decided to go on a long trip in search of the formula for happiness.

Hector’s trip takes him to different places (while these are not specifically mentioned, one can surmise that these are Hong Kong, a country in Africa, and the US). He meets old friends in these trips and makes new ones. He has all sorts of adventures ranging from a flirtation with the “prettiest Chinese girl he’d ever seen in his life” to being kidnapped by goons, talking to a monk, attending to a sick woman in a plane, and discussing the theory of happiness with a professor who was a world expert on happiness.

In these travels, Hector made the following observations on Happiness:

1. Making comparisons can spoil your happiness.
2. Happiness often comes when least expected.
3. Many people see happiness only in their future
4. Many people think that happiness comes from having more power or money.
5. Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.
6. Happiness is a long walk in beautiful, unfamiliar mountains.
7. It’s a mistake to think that happiness is a goal.
8. Happiness is being with the people you love.
9. Happiness is knowing your family lacks for nothing.
10. Happiness is doing a job you love.
11. Happiness is having a home and a garden of your own.
12. It’s harder to be happy in a country run by bad people.
13. Happiness is feeling useful to others.
14. Happiness is to be loved for exactly who you are.
15. Happiness comes when you truly feel alive.
16. Happiness is knowing how to celebrate.
17. Happiness is caring about the happiness of those you love.
18. Happiness could be the freedom to love more than one woman at the same time.
19. The sun and the sea make everybody happy.
20. Happiness is a certain way of seeing things.
21. Rivalry poisons happiness
22. Women care more than men about making others happy
23. Happiness means making sure that those around you are happy.

(Hector crossed out #18 for fear that such will upset Clara, his special friend, if she happens to see his notes.)

The professor said that Happiness can be measured as follows:
Average = (What We Have – What We’d Like to Have) + (What We Have Now - The Best of What We’ve Had In the Past) + (What We Have – What Other People Have)

The professor explained that the average of the differences is closely related to happiness and the smaller the difference, the happier we are.

The monk’s formula, however, is different. He said that Happiness is as follows:
Happiness = Certain way of seeing things + feeling useful to others + doing a job you love

“Hector and His Search for Happiness” is a delightful book written with child-like simplicity but replete with age-old wisdom. Hector’s trip gives us the realization that people have different concepts of what happiness is and as such it is difficult to arrive at a universal formula for achieving happiness. The beauty of this book is that while it does not tell us how to attain that elusive elixir, it gives powerful insights on how we can be less grumpy and less satisfied in our lifetimes.

French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano (2005)

In France, we don’t talk about “diets”, certainly not with strangers. Mainly, we spend our social time talking about what we enjoy: feelings, family, hobbies, philosophy, politics, culture, and yes, food, especially food (but never diets).

The book’s title may lead one to believe that this is a diet book. I would however, describe it as a stylish book of tips for living a balanced, healthy, happy life.

“French Women Don’t Get Fat” gently tells us that those pounds we would like to (permanently!) banish are bound to obstinately stay unless we get our acts right. Guiliano shares with her readers what French women have known for ages - that we all need to take time to smell the flowers, live in the now, stress less, and make time for the people in our lives. She emphasizes that French women abide by the tenets of living to work and not working to live, being gentle with one’s self, and savoring the sweetness and the beauty of what life offers.

Guiliano says that French women:

1. Think about good things to eat. Other women typically worry about bad things to eat.
2. Eat smaller portions of more things. Elsewhere, women eat larger portions of more things
3. Eat more vegetables.
4. Eat a lot more fruit.
5. Love bread and would never consider a life without carbs.
6. Don’t eat “fat-free” or “sugar-free” or anything artificially stripped of natural flavor. They go for the real thing in moderation.
7. Love chocolate, especially the dark, slightly bitter, silky stuff with nutty aroma.
8. Eat with all five senses, allowing less to seem like more.
9. Balance their food, drink, and movement on a week-by-week basis.
10. Believe in the three Ps: planning, preparation, pleasure.
11. Do stray, but they always come back, believing there are only detours and no dead ends.
12. Don’t often weigh themselves, preferring to keep track with their hands, eyes, and clothes: “zipper syndrome”.
13. Eat three meals a day.
14. Don’t snack all the time.
15. Never let themselves be hungry.
16. Never let themselves feel stuffed.
17. Train their taste buds, and those of their young, at an early age.
18. Honor mealtime rituals and never eat standing up or on the run. Or in front of the TV.
19. Don’t watch much TV.
20. Eat and serve what is in season, for maximum flavor and value, and know availability does not equal quality.
21. Love to discover new flavors and are always experimenting with herbs, spices, and citrus juices to make a familiar dish seem new.
22. Eschew extreme temperatures in what they consume, and enjoy fruits and vegetables bursting with flavor at room temperature, at which they prefer their water, too.
23. Don’t care for hard liquor or spirits.
24. Do enjoy in regularly, but with meals, and only a glass (or maybe two).
25. Get a kick from champagne, as aperitif or with food, and don’t need a special occasion to open a bottle.
26. Drink water all day long.
27. Choose their own indulgences and compensations. They understand that little things count, both additions and subtractions, and that as an adult, everyone is the keeper of her own equilibrium.
28. Enjoy going to market.
29. Plan meals in advance and think in terms of menus (a list of little dishes) even at home.
30. Think dining in is as sexy as dining out.
31. Love to entertain at home.
32. Care enormously about the presentation of food. It matters to them how you look at it.
33. Walk everywhere they can.
34. Take the stairs whenever possible.
35. Will dress to take out the garbage (you never know).
36. Are stubborn individuals and don’t follow mass movements.
37. Adore fashion.
38. Know one can go far with a great haircut, a bottle of champagne, and a divine perfume.
39. Know l’amour fait maigrir (love is slimming).
40. Avoid anything that demands too much effort for little pleasure.
41. Love to sit in a café and do nothing but enjoy the moment.
42. Love to laugh.
43. Eat for pleasure.
44. Don’t diet.
45. Don’t get fat.

The book has a wonderful bonus. It contains French recipes that look simple and fun to prepare. Wolfgang Puck (although not a Frenchman), has succinctly put it, “live, love, and eat!”

Bonjour, Happiness! (Secrets to Finding Your Joie de Vivre) by Jamie Cat Callan (2011)

“Everything you do in life has the potential to add to your happiness, your joie de vivre. You can grab a cup of coffee and take it out and drink it while you’re driving or walking down the street, talking on your cell phone,not really paying any attention to the world around you, and not really enjoying your cup of coffee, or you can buy your coffee, sit down and drink it from a real china cup. Find a great place to sit when you have a good view of passersby. Rather than multi-tasking, why not be present to the moment and do one thing at a time?”

In Callan’s newest book, she reveals that she is a typical American woman “who often feels that she is not smart enough, not rich enough, not organized enough, not accomplished enough, and definitely not young enough.”

Taking cue from her grandmother who was very French and who she thinks was someone who had mastered the art of living beautifully; she embarks on a research project that would help her unlock the secret to finding one’s joie de vivre. She applied to the Virginia Center for a Creative Arts fellowship which enabled her to live and work in Auvillar, a little village in the Southwest of France.

After interviewing, shopping, dining, and cooking with French women from all walks of life, Callan shares some lessons she’s learned from the French:

1. Stop and focus. Be present in simple and familiar activities such as grocery shopping, gardening, cooking, sitting in a park, having a picnic, enjoying a bath, or even doing housework.
2. Be in the moment and be willing to change your plans when something unique and wonderful comes into your life.
3. Break the connection between spending and money and happiness.
4. Resist chasing after happiness and give happiness a chance to sneak up on you.
5. Be creative with less.
6. Dance.
7. Revive and realize some of your old dreams.
8. Tend to the gifts that nature has given you
9. Challenge yourself and break out of the familiar.
10. Appreciate the mystery that is here and now.
11. Work to live, don’t live to work.
12. Walk.
13. Protect your privacy.
14. Add in your repertoire a few tried and tested dishes.
15. Sit down with your family at least once a week to a real meal.
16. Keep the dining room table free of clutter.
17. Practice the art of “less is more”.
18. Learn to occasionally just shrug your shoulders and say, “that’s life!”
19. Open your eyes and notice all the beauty in your world.
20. Ask yourself where you might have gone overboard in one direction or another in your life.
21. Love your body as it is right now.
22. Enjoy your food.
23. Become involved in your community.
24. Develop conversational skills by asking questions.
25. Think romantic thoughts.
26. Wear good lingerie all the time.
27. Dress up.
28. Truly give to yourself.
29. Consider making a commitment to someone else.
30. Create a rhythm and pattern in your life.

Reading “Bonjour, Happiness” is akin to eating the French macaron. First comes the visual delight in beholding this pretty concoction, followed by the satisfaction of taking the first bite, and then the overpowering saccharine sweetness. On the whole, however, a delectable little pleasure.

101 things to do before you turn 40 by kristin mccracken (2005)

Kristin McCracken makes a rundown of things to do before you turn two-score. Some of these can give you a moment’s pause, some ridiculous, some a bit harsh, some insane, and some downrightly questionable -- but all of these said in a spirit of fun. After all, haven’t we learned by now not to take ourselves too seriously?

I have a special affinity for the Italian Renaissance period but I am not riding your time machine to go there even if you paid me. The average life expectancy during that period? Forty years old.

You may also wish to thank the Universe that you were not born in Lesotho, Zambia, Angola, or Swaziland. The CIA Factbook Estimates for 2011 shows that life expectancies for these countries are 40.38, 38.63, 38.2, and 31.88 years, respectively.

McCracken's list:
1. Quit your book club
2. Bridge the baby chasm
3. Admit to everything
4. Throw an Oscar party
5. Make out with the best man
6. Eat the worm
7. Build a nest egg
8. Take your parents out to dinner
9. Date a 25-year old, one last time
10. Put a lid on it
11. Karaoke
12. Host
13. Scuba dive
14. Document your life
15. Stop the tchotchkes
16. Serve on a jury
17. Play poker
18. Musically upgrade
19. Yell at someone
20. Remove it
21. Lose the snooze
22. Pierce something other than your ear
23. Strain your brain
24. Rent the classics
25. Pay off credit card debt
26. Think outside the box
27. Do something romantically cheesy
28. Drop $50 on a bottle of wine
29. Date a musician
30. Drive cross-country
31. Control the future of your face
32. Say NO
33. Ride a Harley
34. Accentuate the positive
35. Say yes to bubbles
36. Redistribute the wealth
37. Unsubscribe
38. Confront bullies, racists, and homophobes
39. Supply your own power
40. Sculpt yourself
41. Teach a class
42. Have a kid if you want one
43. Go to Paris
44. Reunite
45. Be your own Schneider
46. Give a really great toast
47. Buy a piece of real art
48. Take a stand
49. Master a mass-transit system, but know how to hail a taxi
50. Cut someone loose
51. Vibrate
52. Enact a two-drink maximum
53. Play an instrument
54. Make a new friend each year
55. Smell good
56. Dump the gap
57. Boycott February 14
58. Take a sabbatical
59. Go fishing
60. Fill up your jewelry box
61. Kiss the frogs
62. Play matchmaker
63. Be a boss
64. Purge
65. Break your own record
66. Quit smoking
67. Sign each book you read
68. Ask a friend for help
69. Drive a car that costs more than $50,000
70. Show gratitude
71. Expose the wizard
72. Take a mental-health day
73. Discover your superpower
74. Go out to a movie alone
75. Root, root, root
76. Instead of a stage name, pick a “stage age”
77. Lose gracefully
78. Surprise someone
79. Ride in a limo
80. Hang up your binoculars
81. Let the spirit move you
82. Sleep under the stars
83. Give something back
84. Habla sie Francais
85. Throw out any T-shirts with logos on them
86. Ride a roller coaster
87. Have a male friend
88. Ditch your college furniture
89. Name something
90. Divorce your hairstylist, or at least cheat
91. Give someone else to love your favorite movie
92. Take the long way home
93. Learn to tango
94. Go somewhere that makes people scratch their heads
95. Charm your way into (or out of) something
96. Figure out what you want to be when you grow up
97. Colorize
98. Never show up empty-handed
99. Bring something back to life
100. Retreat
101. Accept that forty is the new 30

What’s in your list?

hope for the flowers by trina paulus (1972)

Trina Paulus’s Hope for the Flowers, is a children’s story; a good children’s story. And like generally a lot of good children’s stories, contains a story for adults as well.

Yellow and Stripes are caterpillars on a ruthless climb up a pillar. No one knows what’s up there and no one particularly knows why they are climbing this pillar. It is not a pleasant sight – caterpillars pushing, kicking, and stepping on each other. It gets more merciless as one comes near the apex. The caterpillars on that side have realized that to be able to get to the top, they have to get rid of certain caterpillars.

Yellow and Stripes have a realization and they start climbing down…

It is easy to look at Hope for the Flowers as a parable of the rat (or rather, a caterpillar) race – people scurrying to get to the top no matter the cost and the emptiness and loneliness of being up there.

If one looks closely enough, there are however, a lot of other ways at looking at the story of Yellow and Stripes. One can see it as a parable of choices – one can opt to climb up, go down, or stay put. One can also treat it as a parable of relationships - committing, letting go, faith, and second chances. Still one can view it as a parable of revolution, a parable of re-invention, or even a parable of disillusionment.

Here’s the thing about very good children’s books. One reads it the first time and understands it one way; one reads it the second time several years after and realizes that there are several dimensions to the same book. Hope for the Flowers is a very good children’s book.

the alchemist by paulo coelho (1988)

“It’s a book that says the same thing all other books in the world say,” continued the old man. “It describes people’s inability to choose their own Personal Legends. And it ends up saying that everyone believes the world’s greatest lie.”

“What’s the world’s greatest lie?” the boy asked, completely surprised.

“It’s this: that a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.”

It is of no moment that Coelho’s been repeating himself in his later books, that his plots have worn thin, and his characters have turned predictable. For is it not sufficient that he has shown us how to discover our Personal Legends – that which we have always wanted to accomplish - and reminded us that when we want something, all the universe will conspire to help us achieve the same?

Coelho warns us that as time passes, a mysterious force will begin to convince us, however, that it will be impossible for us to realize our Personal Legend. It’s a force that appears to be negative, but actually will show us how to realize our Personal Legend. It prepares our spirit and will, because there in one great truth on this planet: Whoever we are, or whatever it is we do, when we really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s our mission on earth.

the prophet by kahlil gibran (1951)

I don’t think I will ever get tired reading this book. Here’s a good site where you can check out what’s been told the People of Orphalese.



Then a lawyer said, "But what of our Laws, master?"

And he answered:

You delight in laying down laws,

Yet you delight more in breaking them.

Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.

But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore,

And when you destroy them, the ocean laughs with you.

Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.

But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-towers,

But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness?

What of the cripple who hates dancers?

What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant things?

What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?

And of him who comes early to the wedding-feast, and when over-fed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters law-breakers?

What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?

They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.

And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?

And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth?

But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?

You who travel with the wind, what weathervane shall direct your course?

What man's law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man's prison door?

What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man's iron chains?

And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man's path?

People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?

being happy! by andrew matthews (1988)

The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.
- John Milton


One of my uncles pressed me to read this book when I was about 12 years old saying that he had found it quite enlightening and helpful in his life. I dutifully perused the volume but did not find any earth-shaking revelations and found it rather disappointingly mundane. My uncle afterwards asked me how I found the book and I said, “uh, it was ok”. I am wondering now why my uncle even sought my opinion in the first place. Maybe because at that time, he still had no kids, could not recall his own childhood, or maybe have forgotten that at 12-years, one is invincible and has yet to discover the opposite pole of succeeding and is still on the world-is-mine-for-the-taking frame of mind. Worry is an alien verb at 12.

At some point, 12-year olds do discover mortality – they find out that people get sick, they die; that people enter and leave our lives; that our parents, we strongly suspect, may not be infallible but we do not want to be responsible for telling them so (or maybe we want them to remain infallible, up there with the resident in the Vatican), that the economy enters into a recession and we suddenly start worrying about the mortgage; that people figure in road mishaps no matter what precautions they take; that politics may get into the best of intentions; that sometimes fitness and merit is not all there is to nail that promotion; that people intentionally renege on their commitments; and that plans turn out to be – well, plans.

Before we decide to be not happy (according to Abraham Lincoln, a man who had more than enough reason to be unhappy but went on to become of the greatest Presidents of the United States, “most people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be”), Matthews prods to ask ourselves these questions:
1. Do you have enough air to breathe, do you have enough food for today?
2. Can you still see? Walk? Hear?
3. What is the worst thing that could happen, and if it did, would you still be alive today?
4. Are you taking yourself too seriously?
5. What are you learning from this situation?
6. If things really seem serious, will you be ok for the next five minutes?
7. What else can you do?

Matthews tells this little story to emphasize a point. “Fred might, on just having lost his job, decide that he now has the opportunity to have a new work experience, to explore new possibilities, and to exercise his independence in the workplace. His brother Bill might, under the same circumstances, decide to jump off a 20-storey building and end it all. Given the same situation, one man rejoices while the other man commits suicide! One man sees disaster and the other man sees opportunity.”

Mathhews, however, shares that “probably the greatest way to feel better about yourself is to do something for someone else. Excessive worry and self-pity grow out of self-occupation. The moment you start making other people happy, whether you are sending them flowers or digging their garden or giving them your time, you feel better. It is automatic. It is simple.”

the little prince by antoine de saint-exupery (1943)

Chapters I love best from this book:

Chapter VI
Oh, little prince! Bit by bit I came to understand the secrets of your sad little life . . . For a long time you had found your only entertainment in the quiet pleasure of looking at the sunset. I learned that new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me:
"I am very fond of sunsets. Come, let us go look at a sunset now."
"But we must wait," I said.
"Wait? For what?"
"For the sunset. We must wait until it is time."
At first you seemed to be very much surprised. And then you laughed to yourself. You said to me:
"I am always thinking that I am at home!"
Just so. Everybody knows that when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France.
If you could fly to France in one minute, you could go straight into the sunset, right from noon. Unfortunately, France is too far away for that. But on your tiny planet, my little prince, all you need do is move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight falling whenever you like . . .
"One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!"
And a little later you added:
"You know--one loves the sunset, when one is so sad . . ."
"Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?"
But the little prince made no reply.

Chapter XXII
"Good morning," said the little prince.
"Good morning", said the railway switchman.
"What do you do here?" the little prince asked.
"I sort out travelers, in bundles of a thousand" , said the switchman. "I send off the trains that carry them: now to the right, now to the left."
And a brilliantly lighted express train shook the switchman's cabin as it rushed by with a roar like thunder.
"They are in a great hurry," said the little prince. "What are they looking for?"
"Not even the locomotive engineer knows that," said the switchman.
And a second brilliantly lighted express thundered by, in the opposite direction.
"Are they coming back already?" demanded the little prince.
"These are not the same ones," said the switchman. "It is an exchange."
"Were they not satisfied where they were?" asked the little prince.
"No one is ever satisfied where he is," said the switchman.
And they heard the roaring thunder of a third brilliantly lighted express.
"Are they pursuing the first travelers?" demanded the little prince.
"They are pursuing nothing at all," said the switchman. "They are asleep in there, or if they are not asleep they are yawning. Only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes."
"Only the children know what they are looking for," said the little prince. "They waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry . . ."
"They are lucky," the switchman said.

the 7 habits of highly effective people by stephen r. covey (1989)

Any time is a good time to prod us not only to get back on that saddle and shoot for the supernova, but more importantly to grant a sliver of opportune time for us to resolve to be better family members, friends, colleagues, and more involved individuals in our respective spheres of influence.

Stephen R. Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” provides the following guideposts:

1. Be proactive (Principles of Personal Vision)
- It means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives; that our behaviour is a function of our decisions, not our conditions; that we can subordinate feelings to values; and that we have the initiative and responsibility to make things happen. Highly proactive people do not blame circumstances, conditions or conditioning for their behaviour. Their behaviour is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.

2. Begin with the end in mind (Principles of Personal Leadership)
- It means to start with a clear understanding of your destination; to know where you’re going to better understand where you are now so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.

3. Put first things first (Principles of Personal Management)
- It is the ability to make decisions and choices, to act in accordance with them, and to act rather than to be acted upon. It is usually not the dramatic, the visible the once-in-a-lifetime, up-by-the-bootstraps effort that brings enduring success. Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make everyday.

4. Think win/win (Principles of Interpersonal Leadership)
- Win/win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. It means that agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial, mutually satisfying; that all parties feel good about the decision and feel committed to the action plan; that it sees life as a cooperative, not a competitive arena; and that it is based on the paradigm that there is plenty for everybody, that one person’s success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the success of others.

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood (Principles of Emphatic Communication)
- Emphatic listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.

6. Synergize (Principles of Creative Cooperation)
- It means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Valuing the differences is the essence of synergy – the mental, emotional and psychological differences of people. The key to valuing differences is to realize that all the people see the world not as it is, but as they are.

7. Sharpen the saw (Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal)
- It means exercising all four dimensions, i.e., physical, mental, spiritual, and social/emotional, regularly and consistently in wise and balanced ways.


I first read this book in 1999 as one of the requirements in a course work but have been finding myself flipping through its pages every so often and feeling absurdly eager-beaver a few moments later.

he's not just that into you by greg behrendt and liz tuccillo (2004)

“If we wrote a book called ‘She’s Just Not That Into You, it would sell eight copies. Men don’t process heartbreak that way. We don’t run to Barnes & Noble and buy a book. We get drunk and stand on your lawn, then the cop comes and we’re fairly sure it’s over.”

- Greg Behrendt

This is a hilarious romp of a book wherein authors, Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo (writers of Sex and the City), depose one by one the mind-boggling excuses women concoct to explain to themselves why the man-of-the-hour has not rung the doorbell. Here’s the rundown that can rival any of David Letterman’s top items of the week:

He’s just not into you if he’s …

Not asking you out (because if he likes you, he will ask you out)
- Excuses: maybe he doesn’t want to ruin the friendship excuse / maybe he’s intimidated by me excuse / maybe he wants to take it slow excuse / but he gave me his number excuse / maybe he forgot to remember me excuse / maybe I don’t want to play games excuse

Not calling you (men know how to use the phone)
- Excuses: but he’s been travelling a lot excuse / but he’s got a lot on his mind excuse / he just says things he doesn’t mean excuse / maybe we’re just different excuse / but he’s very important excuse

Not dating you (“hanging out” is not dating)
- Excuses: he just got out of a relationship excuse / but we really are dating excuse / its better than nothing excuse / but he’s out of town a lot excuse

He’s having sex with someone else (there’s never going to be a good excuse for cheating)
- Excuses: he’s got no excuse, and he knows it excuse / but I’ve gotten fat excuse / he has a stronger sex drive than I excuse / but at least he knew her excuse

He only wants to see you when he’s drunk (if he likes you, he’ll want to see you when his judgement isn’t impaired)
- Excuses: but I like him this way excuse / at least it's not the hard stuff excuse

He doesn’t want to marry you (love cures commitment phobia)
- Excuses: things are really tight now excuse / he’s so terribly put upon excuse / he’s just not ready excuse / he just needs a better role model excuse

He’s breaking up with you (“I don’t want to go out with you” means just that)
- Excuses: but he misses me excuse / but it really takes the pressure off us excuse / but everyone is doing it excuse / but then he wants to get back together excuse / but I’m so damn nice excuse / I do not accept his breakup excuse

He’s disappeared on you (sometimes you have to get closure all by yourself)
- Excuses: maybe he’s dead excuse / but can’t I at least yell at him excuse / but I just want an answer excuse

He’s married and other insane variations of being unavailable (if you’re not able to love freely, it's not really love)
- Excuses: but he’s wife is such a bitch excuse / but he’s a really good person excuse / I should wait it out excuse

He’s a selfish jerk, a bully, or a really big freak (if you really love someone, you want to do things to make that person happy)
- Excuses: but he’s really trying to be better excuse / it's just the way he was brought up excuse / it's not always going to be like this excuse / its behind closed doors that count excuse / but he’s just trying to help excuse / but now I’m playing in the big leagues excuse / he’s just finding himself excuse / maybe it’s just his little quirk excuse

The book is done in a Friday-night-easy-writing style, question-and-answer format, guaranteed not to further stress the seat of reason/passion of brain-wracked women pondering on who Behrendt calls “Stinky-the-Timewaster” or “Freddy-Can't-Remember-to-Call”. The truth (the truth generally being more dreadful than a lobotomy) is that according to the authors, men would rather lose an arm out a city bus window than simply tell the Queen of Sheba that “you’re not the one”. So move on superfox, cut your losses, and don’t waste your time fabricating excuses.

Don’t waste the pretty.

what should i do with my life? by po bronson (2003)

“It’s about people who dared to be honest with themselves”
- Po Bronson


Is there anyone here who has not asked any of these questions at any point?

1. Should I put my faith in mystical signs of destiny, or should my sense of a “right fit” be based on logical, practical reasons?
2. When should I accept my lot, make peace with my ambition, and stop stressing out?
3. Why do I feel guilty thinking about this?
4. Should I make money first, to fund my dream?
5. How do I tell the difference between a curiosity and a passion?
6. How do I weigh making myself a better person against external achievements?
7. When do I need to change that situation, and when is it ‘me’ that needs to change?
8. What should I tell my parents, who worry about me?
9. If I have a child, will my frustration over my work go away?
10. What will I feel like when I get there? (How will I know I’m there?)

Robert Frost had it easy, he only had to choose between two roads. Now we are faced with a myriad of options - to choose either road, stand petrified at the crossroad like Lot’s wife, take one road and backpedal if we don’t like it, choose to go back where we originally came from, take the first road then jump to the second road then jump back again to the first road, and so the confusing options go.

The beauty of this book is that there are no ready answers. It does not attempt to cut through the Gordian knot of any personal dissatisfaction or exorcise devils of anxiety or discontent. It merely tells one story after another, stories of real people that may well have been that of our neighbor’s, a colleague’s, our sibling’s, or that of our own little-big selves. Stories which remind us of past sorrows and past joys, and of possible happy futures that can be ours. Then we ask more questions, and in the process a glimmer of light shine through our personal convoluted maze of dilemmas.

Po explains that the stories are organized into eight sections: In the first section, the people interviewed are struggling with the essential paradox of trying to make a “right” decision in the absence of experience. In the second section, they’re overcoming traditional class notions of where they belong. In the third, they’re learning to resist temptations that have distracted them from their true aspirations. The people in section four have found ways to resolve that inherent conflict. In the fifth section, they’re getting to know themselves as people first, then struggling with what that means for their career mission. The people in the sixth section found their right place or environment, which led in turn to greater insight. The seventh section is the longest in the book. It recognizes that we make our choices with our family in mind. The people in the final section demonstrate the virtues of patience and persistence. Po stresses that he included the said part not to admonish the young and urgent, but to respect the Big Picture.

Socrates brandished that the unexamined life is not worth living. “What Should I Do With My Life?” amplifies the point that the examination of this life is no mean feat and the journey arduous and long, but yes, the answers will make this life worth living.

don't sweat the small stuff by richard carlson (1997)

Life is what’s happening while we’re busy making other plans.
- John Lennon

Ever had that feeling of creeping anxiety when you cannot quite put a finger at what is causing the inner tumult? Or when there are a hundred and one things pressing on your mind and you do not know where one thing begins and the other thing ends? Or when you find yourself in the middle of the day with five items on your checklist due yesterday?

I chanced upon this slim volume last weekend while waiting for my cousins at this bookstore-café. I was simply flabbergasted at how man-made complications of enormous proportions are rendered minute in this book. “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff” posits the theory that it’s all really the small stuff which are wearying us, making us all feel like the mythological Sisyphus who had to roll the stone up a slope day after day after day.

Richard Carlson offers 100 steps by which we can avoid the traps of these little squirmy things which slowly gnaw on our insides stopping us from being the happy, serene, loving, compassionate creatures that we are meant to be. Here’s 20 of the 100 in Carlson’s list:

1. Make peace with imperfection.
2. Let go of the idea that gentle, relaxed people, can’t be superachievers.
3. Be aware of the snowball effect of your thinking.
4. Develop your compassion.
5. Remind yourself that when you die, your “in basket” won’t be empty.
6. Become more patient.
7. Allow yourself to be bored.
8. Repeat to yourself, “life isn’t an emergency”.
9. Become aware of your moods and don’t allow yourself to be fooled by the low ones.
10. Practice random acts of kindness.
11. Practice humility.
12. Avoid weatherproofing.
13. Argue for your limitations, and they’re yours.
14. Become a less aggressive driver.
15. Do one thing at a time.
16. Be happy where you are.
17. Remember you become what you practice most.
18. Think of your problems as potential teachers.
19. Become an early riser.
20. One more passing show (It’s enormously helpful to experiment with the awareness that life is just one thing after another. One present moment followed by another present moment. When something is happening that we enjoy, know that while it’s wonderful to experience the happiness it brings, it will eventually be replaced by something else, a different type of moment. If that’s okay with you, you’ll feel peace even when the moment changes. And if you’re experiencing some type of pain or displeasure, know that this too shall pass. Keeping this awareness close to your heart is a wonderful way to maintain your perspective, even in the face of adversity. It’s not always easy, but it is usually helpful.)

all i really need to know i learned in kindergarten by robert fulghum (1986)

We can do no great things; only small things
with great love.

- Mother Teresa

“All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” is a compilation of short essays, strung in no particular order, going this way and that, partly fact, partly imagination; but with the end in view of putting an end to the whining, “it’s a crummy world”. To this Fulghum makes the retort, “what kind of talk is that?”

The book is written in an easy style, it’s almost like listening to an elderly neighbor’s story-telling of rodeo drives, comet-watching, balloon flying, zoo trips, mushroom experiences, bicycle rides for no reason at all, car mishaps, the Russians - and from where you come home feeling a lot cheerier.

Sure, we’ve got that acronym appendage to prove the Bachelor’s degree, heck we even got a string of other acronyms for those post-graduate degrees, but Fulghum posits that this world will be a much better one if we only keep in mind the things we learned way back in kindergarten:

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
Say sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – Look!

And whoever said that, “despite the sham drudgery, and broken dreams, it still is a beautiful world” is a genius.