The Secret to a Happy and Long Life

Based on a research on nuns (yes, nuns! ... to minimize confounding variables, the research says), this is the secret (excerpt):

The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who in the middle of great wealth are starving spiritually. Positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, to inauthenticity, to depression, and, as we age, to the gnawing realization that we are fidgeting until we die. The positive feeling that arises from the exercise of strengths and virtues, rather than from the shortcuts, is authentic.

The trait of optimism helps explain how a single snapshot of the momentary happiness of nuns could predict how long they will live. Optimistic people tend to interpret their troubles as transient, controllable, and specific to one situation. Pessimistic people, in contrast, believe that their troubles last forever, undermine everything they do, and are uncontrollable. Optimism is only one of two dozen strengths that bring about greater well-being.

We need a psychology of rising to the occasion, because that is the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of predicting human behavior.

Read more about it here.

***

Somebody I loved told me once, "Can you tone down your sunny you please? You make me feel worse."

It hurt, very much, considering that my choice to be positive is a choice borne out of the pain and struggle of rising above negativity, not just a blind adoption of some Pollyanna-ish philosophy.

***

Of course I didn't "tone down the sunny me"!

I said goodbye to him instead.

I'm glad I did.

It wouldn't have worked out for us in the long run; he would have been a drag, to say the least.

He would've significantly shortened my life too, haha.

My One-Boobed Mamma

Happy surprise!

I found this while surfing.

I thought My One-Boobed Mamma would be released in early 2009 yet; apparently, it's coming out this August already!

The release of one's work to the public always feels like sending your firstborn out to The Big School. I guess I'll never stop feeling this way about my "creative children", aside from my flesh-and-blood creative children...

May My One-Boobed Mamma reach those who need her most, and may their lives be better from reading her.

It's Time

I intend to die at 80. That leaves me 40 years to go.

For the last 40 years of my life so far, I have been mainly taking, receiving, learning from others, even as I sought to find my own way and become comfortable in my own skin. Now that I am in a good place at last (my own skin : >, knowing my way), I figure it’s time to give back, to “pay it forward” so to speak, as the next half of my life spreads out before me.

One would think that with the many sites and blogs I already maintain, I would stay put with these. Well, I guess I surprise even my self up to now. It’s ideas, gut feel, and spark that get to me best. It’s not really about planning and deliberate creation; it’s more like spontaneous combustion for me.

Way back in 2000, after finishing a creative writers’ workshop, I was asked to deliver the “valedictory” speech in behalf of all my other writer-fellows. I remember summing up the experience of the journey in creative writing as being composed of three levels: first, there is writing for catharsis; then, there is writing for self-expression and self-discovery; then, there is writing for craft and communication.

I guess it would apply to this new endeavor, too, although this is not about creative writing. As I created this new blog (actually, this was the last one in this new series), I also created along with this other blogs (please see Blog Roll) which reflect my interests and passions, as well as my training, education and experience so far.

It’s writing for craft and communication time now, giving back to the world what I have learned so far in my own journeys, studies and reflections.

I see this new endeavor as also a way for me to bridge the link between the so-called experts (the academe, the civil society organizations, even business) in their field that I have worked with for most of my life, with the everyday person and net citizen out there, as that seems to be a vital but still unfulfilled link today.

I have discovered that I have this gift– for linking seemingly unrelated ideas and incompatible people and groups together. Since it’s payback time for me, I might as well use this gift well and to the maximum.

The Net (and WordPress) is a good place to start.

Let Your Life Speak

This made me cry, in a beautiful way. It resonated with me and affirmed how I have been trying to live my life so far, consciously so for the past 6-8 years now... which has been called crazy, at best, by some, and stupid and foolish, at worst, by others...

Well, heck, at least it's MY life, on my own terms... and the peace and joy from all the adventures and misadventures and lessons learned either way is priceless.

Excerpt:

Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what is truly about--quite apart from what I would like it to be about--or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.

That insight is hidden in the word vocation itself, which is rooted in the Latin for "voice." Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.

Read more here.

When All Is Said and Done

Here's to us, one more toast and then we'll pay the bill
Deep inside both of us can feel the autumn chill
Birds of passage, you and me
We fly instinctively
When the summer's over and the dark clouds hide the sun
Neither you nor I'm to blame when all is said and done

In our lives we have walked some strange and lonely treks
Slightly worn but dignified and not too old for sex
We're still striving for the sky
No taste for humble pie
Thanks for all your generous love and thanks for all the fun
Neither you nor I'm to blame when all is said and done

It's so strange when you're down and lying on the floor
How you rise, shake your head, get up and ask for more
Clear-headed and open-eyed
With nothing left untried
Standing calmly at the crossroads,no desire to run
There's no hurry any more when all is said and done

Standing calmly at the crossroads,no desire to run
There's no hurry any more when all is said and done

from: ABBA's "When All Is Said and Done"