The other day at work I was doing some uploading and formatting of images for a new site, and rather than listen to music as I usually do, I decided to put on a TED Talk. I was just feeling nerdy, I guess. But man, those babies blow me away every time.
If you’re not familiar, TED is a conference that is pretty fancy. People at the top of their game give talks, and the people who put the whole thing together post everything online FOR FREE. Of course, there’s so much content, that it can be a little overwhelming, but I like to click on the check box for “most viewed,” and it usually turns up interesting stuff.
So this other day at work, I ended up listening to this one:
It’s about how we are better at everything we do when we’re happy. You should watch it if you have 10 minutes to spare.
If you don’t, I’ll tell you the kicker – this guy has done research on how it is we can train ourselves to be happier (and therefore better at everything we do). I did a little screen grab for you:
Three gratitudes means writing down three new things that you’re grateful for every day. The rest is pretty self explanatory, except the random (or as he calls them intentional) acts of kindness – he describes that as writing an email, first thing every day when you sit down at work, to someone saying why you care about them, or why they’re great.
This guys says (and I’m inclined to believe him, because you don’t get to do a Ted Talk just by walking in off the street) that if you do a 21 day training of these 5 things, you will begin the process of reprogramming your brain – to be happier.
If this were an infomercial, I would totally be pulling out my credit card.
So I’ve been thinking how I should do this. 21 days. It would be really interesting to see how I felt as the three weeks progressed. But then I think – the main thing that makes me unhappy is being over-committed. It’s a bad habit I’ve been trying for a long time to let go of.
It wouldn’t take so long. The exercise and meditation would take time, and I guess the journal writing would too. Let’s say it’s an hour every day. Man, if I had an extra hour every day I’d sleep. Or work on my novel.
But maybe I’d be happier if I devoted some time to trying to make myself happier.
In any case, I’ve been going around on this for about 5 days now, and I’m not any happier (or sadder) than I was before. If I did it every other day would I be half as happier at the end?
Who can say?
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