Belief Makers

In the 90's I was a big fan of Tori Amos. For the ones who don't know Tori Amos, one of her big hits was a song called "Me and a gun". It was a song about how she was raped in the rear of a car, and for her writing the song was a way to get out of being a victim of what had happened. The line I remember most from the song was "But I haven't seen Barbados, so I must get out of this".

I didn't know where Barbados was - and for some reason I didn't look it up. I imagined that it was a tropical island somewhere in the pacific. I pictured beautiful beaches, palm trees and sun; the sea turquoise blue and the wind soft. Thinking of this picture of the island I could feel the warm sand between my toes as I walked towards the sea...

I decided that I wanted to go to Barbados. I imagined that going to Barbados was "out of my reach"; something that I would never be rich able to do. So I didn't even look it up. For a long time I didn't realize that it was in the Caribbean and not in the pacific!

Time passed and so did the music. I moved on to listened to Heather Nova, Joni Mitchell, Suzanne Vega, Lisa Ekdahl. There are so many women singing angry songs about how they used to be victims, and I loved all of them!

Last year I met my old pen pal. When we were teenagers we wrote long letters to each other about what happened in our lives. Mostly about the boys we were in love with but too afraid to approach, or about how our parents had been so unfair. This was long before I became a fan of Tori Amos.

It turns out that my old pen pal never heard about Tori Amos, but guess what: she did live a few years at Barbados. To her Barbados is also a dream: she loves the beaches, the people, the music, the nature, and she has some great memories of Barbados. Now we are dreaming of Barbados together!

She wants to go back and I want to go for the first time. And this time I'm actually determined: I will go! Why? Because I'm prepared to die! Not that I'm ill or have any reason to believe that I will die anytime in the near future, but I have come to a place in my life, where I feel happy and I feel that there is nothing more that I need in my life. There are things that I want, and I'm perfectly happy pursuing what I want.



Writing this I am wondering about the difference between wanting to go and wanting to go back. I used to have a lot of things I wanted to go back to: being fit, being married (not to the same man though), having a house, being a manager, being with old friends...



Now I don't want to go back. I still want to be fit, but I'm going towards being fit. Not in the same way as I used to do it, but in a way which works for me. I want to see Barbados, and I'm closer now: I know where it is. And I have more knowledge: I've seen pictures, learned about the seasons and when to go...



I wonder how often we hold dreams without knowing how to find them at the map. I have done dialogues with people who say they want to "work with people", but they do not seem to know what that actually means to them. One example was a man who worked as a manager, but who didn't believe that motivating his employees was part of "working with people".

So how clear are you about your motivations? If you have an addiction, do you know why? Do you know what you'll miss if you let go of it? Do you know what you want to get instead? Do you want to be happier? What does it mean? What are you doing to get there?
Can you describe the details of how to get there? Can you draw a picture of how it looks once you've reached your destination?

I believe that going to Barbados will mean that I don't have anything I have to get through before I can start living my life. I don't have to be thinner, fitter or happier. I can live my life right now! I can go to Barbados first thing in the New Year.

Do you wanna join me?

Labels: adventures in happiness, all blogs, joy vigh strand, wants

After my many discussions with Mark K and my dad (Lee) over the Thanksgiving weekend, I thought it might be fun to write the happiness (or unhappiness) corollary to the Miss Management Pageant which I've entitled Shortcuts to Unhappiness.

If you have a strong commitment to and strive for unhappiness, please know that proper and regular application of these simple and easy-to-do techniques can lead to sustainable and high quality depression and anxiety. If you're someone who wants to become happier, please know that regular application of these simple and easy-to-do techniques can lead to sustainable and high-quality depression and anxiety.

1. Attribute everything you do to either genetics or environment
   There's nothing so fundamentally disabling and dis-empowering as attributing everything that we do to either our upbringing and environment, or to our genes. If you want to keep challenges in your life like worry or fear or jealousy or anger or anxiety, simply pronounce, "It's just who I am!"
   
   If you're struggling with addiction, take comfort in knowing that there's nothing you can do about it. You're genetically predisposed to overeating or drinking excessively. You're just wired that way. It's just your lot.
   
   
2. Remind yourself and others that optim-istic is not real-istic
   Whenever you encounter someone who is sickeningly optimistic, write them off as a flake and remind yourself that you're not pessimistic, you're a realist. Optimism just sets us up for disappointment. It's better to never try than to try and than to have tried and lost.
   
   
3. Avoid meaningless activity
   A common theme among happy people is that they are active people. The specific activity doesn't matter as much as the being active part; it can be climbing mountains or washing dishes or walking around the block with your kid. Simply knowing that activity can improve your outlook on life, could pose a significant threat to your unhappiness. No worries! Simply dismiss anything that you're capable of doing as not worthwhile or meaningless.
   
   
4. Dwell
   A beautiful side-effect of low activity is that it gives you plenty of time to dwell on the past. When dwelling try to focus on those things that you regret or people who have "hurt" you or treated you unjustly. If you find yourself slipping into happy memories, pull a little unhappiness jujitsu and flip it into how sad you are that the happy memories are now just memories.
   
   
5. Kill curiosity before it kills your cat
   One of the more powerful weapons in both Mark's and Lee's arsenals of unhappiness is boredom. While sharing this with Jonathan, he wondered aloud how anyone could every be bored. (Jonathan is a man of a million ideas with the wherewithal to actually do them.) He then said, "What happens to people that they lose all curiosity?"
   
   Even if you buy into the whole genetics thing, each of us at least starts with a modicum of curiosity. A key to sustained unhappiness is killing it. Learn to find nothing interesting or inspiring.
   
   
6. Make every situation a dilemma
   The most effective way to stay stuck in a situation is to force-fit all decisions into a dichotomy (an either/or decision), in which both alternatives are wrong. Simply forget the fact that their are infinitely many solutions to any problem by insisting that there are always two, neither of which appeals to you.
   
   
7. Put obligation before desire
   A critical success factor in achieving unquenchable unhappiness is to always place your obligations before the things you want, especially when it comes to relationships.
   
   Start by recognizing that only people who are related to you genetically are your family. Remind yourself that the strangers whom you meet along the way, (the ones with whom you share dreams and passions, the ones with whom you can say anything, the ones that you love to be with) are not your family. Your family is your blood. You're genetically bound. These are the people you should be with, especially on holidays.
   
   
8. Jump to extreme examples of why something won't work
   I have two words for you, "Michael" and "Jordan". For some reason, people with a strong commitment to unhappiness frequently site Michael Jordan when attempting to prove that they're stuck with their lot in life. The statement basically takes the form of, "Thinking that you can simply decide to be something or do something is a load of crap. For example, you can't just decide to play basketball like Michael Jordon!"
   
   Alternatively, there's Tiger Woods. In the end, whenever someone proposes that you can step beyond your existing boundaries, that you can simply decide to be something you're not, remember "Michael", "Jordan".
   
   
9. Keep guilty secrets
   One of the things that I learned from my dad is that guilt and regret are powerful sources of unhappiness, perhaps the most powerful sources. You can turbo-charge guilt and regret by keeping them secret. If at all possible, never share them with anyone.
   
   
10. Answer personal questions with references to others
    Sometimes it becomes difficult to keep your sources of guilt, remorse and regret secret. Some pesky son or interested daughter-in-law may may persistently ask you questions about yourself and what's going on inside.
    
    If you find these questions impossible to avoid, the simple solution is to answer them with examples from someone else's life. By never answering personal questions with personal answers, you can guarantee that your secret guilt and regret never surface to see the light of day. You can maintain a source of perpetual unhappiness.
    

But wait, there's more...
Here are a few other tips that might come in handy.

1. Surround yourself with low energy people with a keen eye for what can go wrong
2. Know how to become obtuse and literal suggest an abstract concept that might work
   
3. In the event that someone tries to help you, insist that you do it yourself
4. Take everything personally
5. Reserve words like every, all, never and always for things you don't like
6. Dissect, pick-apart and scrutinize things you do like
   
7. Keep an account of what people have done to you
8. If someone does something nice for you, question their motives
9. Always end conversations just before reaching closure
   

What About...
It just occurred to me that you could almost reverse my list by making it an unhappiness calibration tool rather than a guide. All you'd need to do is look at each of the techniques, and then determine to what degree you (or the subject of calibration) practices them. For example, technique number one might become: On a scale of one to ten (ten being quite often), how often do you attribute things to genetics or environment?

Whether your goal is deep dark depression or unquenchable bliss, I hope that my little guide will make getting there more enjoyable.

Happy Wednesday!

Labels: adventures in happiness, all blogs, mark tuomenoksa, philosophy

As I sat on the couch tonight talking with my dad about his newly acquired hatred of African-American presidents who lie all the time (a hatred that is apparently shared by everyone at his assisted living center in Kentucky), and the seeming contradiction with his ostensible adherence to Christianity, I started thinking to myself, "Wow, I wonder what a good shot of gratitude would do for my dad and his cronies?"

That got me thinking about Thanksgiving.

I think that Thanksgiving is my favorite of holidays. Although potentially religious in nature (depending on whether or not the object of gratitude is some type of deity), the holiday is not deity dependent; we can direct our thanks towards God, or the "Universe", or towards other people, or we can simply feel grateful. Regardless of towards whom or what we direct our gratitude, I find that doing gratitude is always a happiness building experience.

Feeling Lucky?
When Bears and I were working closely together on a daily basis, we would often discuss and playfully debate the object of our gratitude. Whenever Bears would tell me that I was 'blessed', I would reply with, "You mean, 'lucky'."

Bears would quickly correct me by explaining 'blessed' and the implications of the universe being benevolent and not random. I would respond with, "I know what you mean by blessed and its implications; I really meant to use lucky', as in disproportionately benefiting from random events or beating the odds."

It was always fun.

Of course, neither of us is correct when it comes to gratitude. Although many of us might consider gratitude to be a direct response or reaction to some event or person, gratitude is actually something that we do independently of cause or attribution. We can be grateful for anything and in any situation; it's something that we can choose or not choose.

If we take our ability to control our gratitude to "extremes", our gratitude may appear irrational to those around us, or even to ourselves. "How can you be grateful for this or that?" (Joy, this would be one of those non-questions you referred to in What Kind of Question is That?)

Rather than simply saying, "because I decided to feel grateful" or "because it feels good to be grateful", we often seek to justify or rationalize our gratitude by attributing it to either a higher power or beating the odds. But typically, the rationalization comes after the fact. In the end, gratitude is just something we do.

Thanksgiving?
So then the question is, "Why Thanksgiving?"

Isn't that a curious question? I mean, when you get together with people for Thanksgiving, what's the point? I don't mean this flippantly; I simply mean, why are you doing it? Is it just vacuous tradition? What's your intention? Are you getting together to enhance your sense of gratitude? Are you doing it to express gratitude to those who are there? Are you fulfilling familial obligations? Looking for a meal? What are you doing?

As I think about it, for me (being an existentialist who doesn't carry out traditions for their own sake), there are three basic functions of Thanksgiving (doesn't 'function' sound cold and clinical):

1. to make my experience of gratitude bigger by outwardly sharing it with others, and
2. to allow others to bask in the glow of my gratefulness, and
3. to bask in the glow of the gratitude of others.
   

Being grateful generally feels good; it's a short-cut to being happy. When I express my gratitude to others, I amplify it thereby making my happiness bigger.

Being grateful specifically is edifying to the object of my gratitude (assuming that the object is a living human that can experience my expression of gratitude).

Receiving gratitude feels great (when I allow myself graciously accept it.)

All of these great feelings are choices, but choices that come quite easily to most of us humans.

The Happiest Day of the Year
If you believe that gratitude is a shortcut to happiness (perhaps the best shortcut), then Thanksgiving should by definition be the happiest day of the year!

So, do you buy any of this? Is gratitude a shortcut to feeling happier? Does being grateful feel good? Is receiving gratitude edifying and uplifting?

Perhaps I'm preaching to the choir, but if you do buy into any or all of this, how will keeping these ideas at the forefront of your awareness affect your Thanksgiving?

I know that many of you don't live in the US, but since we're talking about what ought to be the happiest day of the year you might want to join in. In fact, I've come to a decision. Sitting here at my official desk at the International Headquarters of A New Option blog in South Egremont, MA, USA, I've decided to formally declare Thursday, November 26, 2009 International Gratitude Expression Day.

iGed Terms and Conditions
To participate in International Gratitude Expression Day (aka, iGed), all you need to do is:

1. Set a clear intention to actively, warmly and meaningfully express your gratitude to everyone you encounter (especially those for you whom you often feel less than grateful)
   
2. Set a clear intention to graciously receive and indulge in the gratitude of others
3. Warm up for the event by actively keeping these intentions at the forefront of your awareness all day today
4. Invite others to join you in celebrating International Gratitude Expression Day
5. Express and receive gratitude!
6. Whenever you find yourself or someone doing something other than gratitude, remind yourself of your intentions or share them with the other person
   

Note on on item #1: backhanded expressions of gratitude such as, "I want to thank you for showing me what bastards men can be!" don't count.

The Swine-Flu of Happiness
Imagine what might happen if we all decided to do this. What if gratitude is more contagious than the H1N1 virus! What if everyone on the planet were just 1% happier on average? It could be the happiness equivalent of global warming; all the unhappiness icebergs might melt and we'd be drowned in a sea of happiness! Watch out North Holland!

So, won't you join me for International Gratitude Expression day? You can start right now by expressing gratitude to the first person you see! All you people in Kentucky, start expressing how grateful you are for Obama! All you people in Great Barrington, start expressing your gratitude for Bush!

Get out there on Facebook and invite others to join you! Send email to all you Linked-In contacts. Let's make this thing big! Or, if you like, I'd love for you to share an expression of gratitude to anyone you like in the comments below!

Happy iGed!

Labels: adventures in happiness, all blogs, empowerment, philosophy

Surprise!

Some of you have known for  a little while, but this is a surprise for most of you: over the last six weeks we (Mark Kaufman, Teflon and I) have been working quietly and persistently on publishing the first A New Option Blog book called Adventures in Happiness. This week I sent the book to the printer for publishing, and we will receive the copies in the next two weeks. We are so exited about this book. It has kept us up working at night; it has given us lots of extra phone calls and discussions; it has given us many new ideas. We hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as we have enjoyed creating it for you.

See below the first glimpse of the cover and the read text we printed at the back of the cover.

About Adventures in Happiness
Adventures in Happiness is a collection of inspirational and educational articles written for the A New Option blog during 2009.

The articles represent the thoughts, ideas and questions of twelve diverse authors (Barbara Balla, Jeannene Christie, Faith Clarke, Kathy DeCastro, Brian Ellis, Rita Gendelman, Mark Kaufman, Chris Kisling, Julie Sando, Iris Tuomenoksa, Mark Tuomenoksa and Joy Vigh Strand) who were drawn together by a common interest in a philosophy that had touched each of their lives, a philosophy taught at The Option Institute and Autism Treatment Center of America. The authors each believe that they are in control of their happiness and that what has been doesn't necessarily dictate what will be.

Grateful for the life-changing, happiness-fueling effect of this philosophy, the authors wanted to share their experiences in the hope that their experiences might inspire others to create greater joy and happiness in their lives. This eclectic mix of parents of special needs children, business entrepreneurs, life coaches and autism professionals has created a special blend of real-life stores, easy wisdom and loving inspiration that can be useful to anyone who wants a happier, healthier and more empowered life.

Sale starts today
The sale for this book starts today. Isn't this exciting! This book is the perfect gift to help spread happiness through the world!

Have you been enjoying the articles on this blog? Have you shared and discussed the articles with others? What about sharing this book with more than 300 pages of inspirational writings with your loved ones, colleagues, or neighbors?

Almost half of the printed books are already reserved, so if you want to get your hands on a copy, I recommend you to act quickly! At the time of this post, we only had 80 copies left.

If you're Interested, please click here... to reserve your copy right now!

Have a great, great Thursday!

Labels: adventures in happiness