There’s More to Life Than Being Happy

From The Atlantic:

In September 1942, Viktor Frankl, a prominent Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna, was arrested and transported to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents. Three years later, when his camp was liberated, most of his family, including his pregnant wife, had perished — but he, prisoner number 119104, had lived. In his bestselling 1946 book, Man’s Search for Meaning, which he wrote in nine days about his experiences in the camps, Frankl concluded that the difference between those who had lived and those who had died came down to one thing: Meaning, an insight he came to early in life. When he was a high school student, one of his science teachers declared to the class, “Life is nothing more than a combustion process, a process of oxidation.” Frankl jumped out of his chair and responded, “Sir, if this is so, then what can be the meaning of life?”

As he saw in the camps, those who found meaning even in the most horrendous circumstances were far more resilient to suffering than those who did not. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing,” Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

(Emphasis mine.)

It seems to me that Frankl defined a kind of happiness with his above declaration.

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18 Rules of Living by the Dalai Lama

From The Unbounded Spirit. I particularly liked number 2—”When you lose, don’t lose the lesson”—and number 10—”Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.”

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‘Top 10 Things That Determine Happiness’

From mintlife blog,

Happiness is, by nature, a subjective quality with a definition like a moving target. There is scant evidence — qualitative or quantitative — to lend convincing support to those life variables most critical in determining individual happiness, which is likely why past researchers committed to the scientific method rarely tried to tackle the subject.

This is changing…

Gosh, I’m a flaming introvert, supposedly less happy than extroverts. Really? And I think they missed a big one. Any guesses?

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Proust Questionnaire: Albert Brooks

From Vanity Fair, here is how the “interview” with Albert Brooks starts:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Not sure what happiness means. Need to look that up.

What is your greatest fear?
That three days before I die I’ll find out what happiness means.

 


 

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Top 10 Travel Novels

Found here, with the full text below. I am pleased that numbers 8, 2, and 1 are on the list because I read them and liked all three.  I reviewed number 1 here. And I read another of Donald Miller‘s books, Blue Like Jazz but not the one listed at number 10. But isn’t Peter Matthiessen’s, The Snow Leopard (1978) missing? Or is it considered a non-fiction nature book rather than a travel novel? Continue reading

“Does a flourishing economy depend on delusion?”

In an article titled, In Praise of Irrational Exuberance, found here, Virginia Postrel asks: “Does a flourishing economy depend on delusion?” Then she says, “Adam Smith thought so…”

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Introverts

On two separate occasions, ten years apart, I took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test (MBTI) which confirmed that I am an introvert—perhaps a flaming one. I was therefore fascinated by this latest article called Revenge of the Introvert from Psychology Today, found via Utne Reader. Also, for all you other introverts out there—approximately fifty percent of the population—here are some other links on the subject from The Atlantic: Caring for Your Introvert, Introverts of the World, Unite!, The Introversy Continues, and Jonathan Rauch comments on some of the feedback…

The entire Psychology Today article is below (without the pictures):

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10 Random Thoughts

The following are ten random thoughts, which tells the reader a little about how my mind sometimes works—randomly:

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