Category: Happiness

“Quien sabe” translates to “who knows?” You hear it a lot in Mexico where there’re lots of things you’ll never know.

Kent is a New Englander, an avid Patriots fan, a father of two kids, a regular dude. He works out and does some stretching for a sore back but no yoga classes or things of that sort.

During a recent visit to Mexico, he tried going to meditation. There’s a meditation group in our town that meets every Wednesday night for half an hour. We mentioned we were going and he asked if he could come try it out.

Maybe it was a chance at a quick break from the wife and kids, or maybe being in a new environment makes you more willing to try new things, or maybe it was a little bit of curiosity.

On the walk over, I explained that you just sit for a half hour focusing on your breath going in and out of your nostrils. And when you notice your attention wandering off, simply return it to monitoring your breathing again, and again, and that’s how it goes. The idea being that your mental chatter slows down and you can be more in the present moment. Meditation is one of those simplex things – simple but also complex, both at the same time. He said it made sense.

So we had a sit, with all the usual suspects, for 30 minutes. Kent said he liked it and that his legs got a bit tired. I’m not sure meditation will muscle out any of his current activities, quien sabe? A little bit of curiosity can go a long way.

We woke up this morning to a wandering Mariachi band playing “My Way” in Spanish for  a funeral procession. Singers ranging from Frank Sinatra to Sid Vicious have belted out “My Way”- a prideful tune about  living a free and independent life. They weren’t singing about dominance or being dominated, they were just celebrating being able to live how they pleased. At some point in our lives sooner or later, most of us realize “I don’t like being told what to do.”

I think this drive for doing  it your way developed over a long period of time. For a couple of million years living as hunter-gatherers, we had a fierce need to be independent. Primatologist Christopher Boehm argues that “Nomadic foragers are universally – and all but obsessively – concerned with being free from the authority of others.” We’ve been calibrated for a world that no longer exists for most people. One of the things we’re not able to do is live in small bands. Self determination to some extent could be pursued because the groups we lived in were likely run via cooperation more than a hierarchy.

Nowadays, given the chance, in our modern world, most people want to work for themselves. at least people I know.

People don’t want to be subservient. Small steps are taken by progressive societies to make their people’s lives more even and less controlling. For example, some countries are slowly dropping diminutive titles for unwed women. In the US, progressive people and newspapers refer to all women with the more general “Ms.”  And Germany got rid of addressing unmarried women with “Frauline” in favor of generally using only “Frau.”

I think people become distrustful of a system that give others too much authority over them. Communism has crashed and burned because the power in that system was not evenly distributed, as claimed. In the US, citizens are now upset as they realize just how much  unfairness has crept into the system lately.

William Blake put it well when he said “Each man must create his own system or else he is a slave to another mans.”

Here’s a gratitude list. I’m grateful for the internet. I’m grateful for our phone service. I’m grateful for being online. And I’m thankful for being able to blog.

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday (Tuesday) on my normal Tuesday and Friday schedule. It was the first time since I started blogging that I’ve missed a scheduled post. We were offline Monday and most of Tuesday because of unusual rainstorms (it’s the dry season)  this weekend that knocked out phone and internet service to our house. The phone repairman came Tuesday afternoon and made some temporary repairs that will hopefully last until a damaged cable can be replaced.

For the past six weeks I’ve been keeping a daily gratitude list. The list can be mundane like the first paragraph above. Basically anything you’ve come across in your life resulting in a feeling of thankfulness is worthy of jotting down on your list.

The idea of keeping a gratitude list pops up when researchers talk about factors that influence people’s happiness. It’s an easy thing to do with outsized benefits when it’s done with the idea that you’re trying to become happier,versus just going through the motions. A gratitude list pushes you to pay attention to things in your life you might otherwise take for granted. One researcher suggests viewing the items you list as “gifts” you want to savor.

It’s easy to do. I think it’s good to use a cheap spiral bound notebook or any thing you’re not too fussy about. If you get a fancy leather-bound journaling books  you may be reluctant to write all the simple and private things you’re grateful for in such a permanent feeling “book.” With a cheap notebook, you can tear out pages and even chuck the whole thing out when it’s full, who cares? The point is to write just four or five sentences that mean something to you and aren’t for anyone else. Don’t worry about spelling or penmanship.

Like most new habits the hardest part is just starting. But if you just break it into small easy chunks you’re on the way. Take it day by day and pick a time that’s convenient, like right before bed. Write the four or five things you’re thankful for, current or older, simple or grand, and especially people. Going for detail about a particular thing is more effective than a superficial listing. If removing something from your life would make your life less enjoyable it’s a good candidate.

And you can be grateful for this: once you establish the habit the research seems to show that doing it once or twice a week is effective too.

Note to parents: avoid giving your kids weird names. Please.

My parents gave me an unusual name so I feel qualified to offer this advice.

It’s happening all over world. Unusual names in Sweden have gotten so out of hand that there’s a law to curb naming people with especially odd names. It sounds a little complicated in Sweden but it comes in part as a reaction to so many people with similar names.

Even our little town in Mexico, conservative parents and neo-hippy parents seem to delight in assigning their kids hard to pronounce difficult first names. I’ll pass on giving you examples, but take my word for it. In Mexico I changed my name to Nico; I like it and it’s easier for everybody.

This past weekend I was introduced to a few people as Stocker and was reminded how much I don’t like having an unusual name. More than 95% of the time, people are confused about my name when we first meet. It’s not their fault, I’d have the same questions and confused interpretations. Especially in the last ten years or so with the publicity given to celebrity stalkers. Most people will say something like “Your name is Stalker?”

That’s not all, there’s more. My last name, Cary, is more often a first name and my first name, Stocker, is normally a last name, both of which cause another problem. Most times when I need a file retrieved, at say the DMV for example, it’s not found until I suggest they look under Cary Stocker and it’ll be there. Not their fault, but it’s inconvenient for the filer and me.

But, there’re some advantages to having an unusual name. One is most people seem to remember my name once they get it. And another advantage is that I had no problem buying the name for this site.

A picture’s worth a thousand words.

Often, when couples get together, the woman hopes that the man she’s with now will change while the man is hoping that the woman he’s with will never change. Both of them are likely to be disappointed, if that’s what they’re thinking at some level.

Once men and women embrace their differences, trying to enjoy and appreciate their different outlooks then the couple will be a lot happier.

I just really liked this photo.  Maybe it should be more widely distributed; for example, on the backside of business cards for couples therapists, though it’s probably a bit late by that point.