Well, yes and no – it depends on the book.

It may surprise you that research shows people panache is more polished in readers of Pride and Prejudice or Harry Potter than readers of How to Win Friends and Influence People.

According to a 2005 University of Toronto  study, reading fiction is linked to social skills like empathy and awareness. But non-fiction? Not so much.

The study was correlational, not causal, so we can’t say for sure that our reading matter makes us more or less socially adept.

I can see how reading fiction could boost people skills. After all, reading a novel gets you right into a character’s head – you experience ‘first hand’ another person’s feelings and cogitations, tuning you in to the depth of their internal life. It makes sense that your social insight would be cultivated. 

On the other hand, it could go in the other direction, with socially skilled people simply choosing to read more fiction. That would still be interesting. Perhaps reading fiction is a way to hone the skill, or perhaps it’s pleasurable to flex a strong empathy muscle.

Regardless of direction, there’s a link between reading stories and getting on with others. So it can’t hurt every now and then to put down your Q Is for Quantum Particle Physics and pick up A is for Alibi.

Technorati Tags: happiness,relationships,research,reading,fiction

Image: iofoto

You can’t change someone else. And pressuring them to change tends to make them dig their heels in further. We all have a bit of that rebellious child still in us.

But there’s one person you can change – you. And because relationships are mini systems, you only have to alter one part (yourself) to affect the whole system (the relationship).

Let’s say Ken is always late meeting Barbie at the movies. Barb hates missing the start so she’s constantly berating Ken for not getting there on time. Which does nothing to change his tardiness.

Valentine’s Day Happiness Strategy: Make like Michael Jackson and start with the Man in the Mirror

Instead of persisting with this pointless ploy, Barbie could change her own behavior and do something different. For instance:

• When making plans, she could tell Ken she’ll buy her ticket and head in just before the movie starts, and if he’s not there, she’ll catch him for coffee afterward. The trick is to keep it light and pleasant – not threatening or ultimatum-like.
• She could see movies with punctual friends and do less time-sensitive activities with Ken.
• She might choose movies she has little interest in to see with Ken. That way she won’t care if she misses the beginning and she can just enjoy Ken’s company.

By doing something different, Barbie jolts both Ken and herself out of their current behavior pattern. Depending on how much Ken wants to see (particular) movies with Barbie, he may well be motivated to turn up on time.

But the beauty of this approach for Barbie is regardless of what Ken does, she’s no longer stuck in frustration and resentment. Barbie just made herself happier with nary a concern about Ken’s crappy timekeeping.

Leaving her more relaxed for quality time in her camper van.

Did you miss:

• When you’re waiting for Prince/Princess Charming to come along and make you happy – what should you do?
• When you’ve forgotten what you ever saw in them – what should you do?

Technorati Tags: happiness,relationships,love

Image: paultalbot

The things we find attractive or endearing at first – Cuthbert’s slight arrogance,  Mavis’s raucous laugh – can come to annoy the bejesus out of us over time. They haven’t necessarily changed, we’ve zeroed in on minor irritations – sometimes at the expense of major qualities. 

Valentine’s Day Happiness Strategy: Switch from the husband/wife’s list to the widower/widow’s list

In Follow Your Heart, Andrew Matthews describes the two mental lists we have in our heads:

1. the husband/wife’s short list – a puny play-by-play of peeves
2. the widower/widow’s long list – a comprehensive compendium of character

It’s easy to spend years ruminating on petty irritations: Cuthbert says supposably instead of supposedly; Mavis gets mascara goop in her eyes. But if one day Cuth or Mave should cark it, suddenly the long list gets whipped out: he was so loyal, kind and reliable; she was truly generous, caring and good-natured.

Matthews suggests we do the switcheroo on these lists and consciously focus on the things we love about people while they’re here. By bringing the large virtues into our mental foreground we can often shove the pesky little vices way into the distance.

Then, as Andrews says, when they’re gone we can ‘console ourselves with thoughts like "he snored anyway"’.

Coming up:

• When ‘they’ won’t change – what should you do?

Did you miss:

• When you’re waiting for Prince/Princess Charming to come along and make you happy – what should you do?

Image: paultalbot

As Thursday is Valentine’s Day,
this week we turn to some
relationship-themed happiness strategies.

Today – a happiness strategy for singles looking for love:

• When you’re waiting for Prince/Princess Charming to come along and make you happy – what should you do?

Tomorrow -  a happiness strategy for couples:

• When you’ve forgotten what you ever saw in them – what should you do?

Friday – a happiness strategy for relationships and friendships in general:

• When ‘they’ won’t change – what should you do?

When you’re waiting for Prince/Princess Charming to come along and make you happy – what should you do?

Are you waiting for that magical partner to appear and make you happy? Fix your life? Get you out of your rut?

If so, I have some very upsetting news for you. Actually, I have twin upsetting newslets.

1. There’s only one person responsible for fixing your life, and that’s you, dude. You knew I was gonna say it and you know it’s true. So let’s move on.

2. When someone is miserable and their life is shambolic, do you think their FaceBook walls light up with invitations? It’s not that people just aren’t that into them. It’s that  people leave the state to avoid them. Happy, together people want to be with other happy, together people.

Valentine’s Day Happiness Strategy: To attract someone fabulous, be fabulous

The single best thing you can do to meet someone fabulous is be fabulous. Forget waiting, manipulating, lamenting, whining, bargaining and surgical enhancements.

Instead, put your energy into being your best self and developing the qualities you desire in someone else. Go back to that list of the traits you crave in your fantasized love bunny and see how many you have.

If you take yourself off hold and start looking after your own happiness, not only will your life immediately start to pick up, but you’ll become way more appealing too.

When that happens, can I get your number for my friend?

Coming up:

• When you’ve forgotten what you ever saw in them – what should you do?
• When ‘they’ won’t change – what should you do?

Image: paultalbot

Here’s a quick summary of the 7 strategies from the article:

Happiness Strategy # 1: Don’t Worry, Choose Happy

First, make a decision to be happy. Then you can select the strategies to help you. The remaining strategies are the sorts of things psychologists suggest.

Happiness Strategy #2: Cultivate Gratitude

It can dispel bitterness and despair.

Happiness Strategy #3: Foster Forgiveness

Grudges can affect physical and mental health, and ruminating is stressful.

Happiness Strategy #4: Counteract Negative Thoughts and Feelings

Valeo suggests meditation, rhythmic breathing, yoga, or relaxation techniques as well as learning to identify and dispute thoughts of inadequacy and helplessness.

Happiness Strategy #5: Remember, Money Can’t Buy Happiness

Readers of this blog know all about this one! See the recent Happiness Strategy How to be happy – 10. Don’t keep up with the Joneses.

Happiness Strategy #6: Foster Friendship

Valeo mentions that an Australian study found people over 70 with rich friendship networks enjoyed greater longevity.

Happiness Strategy #7: Engage in Meaningful Activities

Do more of what means more to get more out of life.

My 2 cents

In his introduction to the strategies Valeo says ‘your talent for happiness is, to a large degree, determined by your genes’. I say puh-huh! In fact, as we saw in a recent Happiness Strategy – How to be happy – 11. Focus on what you can do to be happier – research suggests that only between 25% and 52% of happiness variance is related to genes. And these figures reflect potential – environment (what you experience) and volition (what you choose to think and do) also contribute to whether and how genetic dispositions are expressed.

Apart from that quibble, the list of 7 strategies is an excellent one.

Valeo sums up by noting ‘happiness can be a matter of choice — not just luck’.

I’d add — and not just money, genes, or life circumstances either.

Technorati Tags: Strategies , money , relationships , forgiveness , gratitude , meaning

Self-obsession is boring

Thinking of ourselves as alone in the world puts us into a delusion. The more we focus on how we feel, the worse we feel. Thurman quotes the Dalai Lama, who says our own pains and pleasures are too boring, too small a theatre for our intelligence.

We can move into compassion

We can move beyond this obsession with ourselves – through art, meditation, understanding, and becoming aware of our interconnectedness with others. Doing so forces us to feel what others feel, to experience compassion. When we’re no longer locked into ourselves, when we escape the prison of I-me-mine, then we start to become interested in others, and to feel our own selves differently.

Helping is more fun than being caught up in ourselves

To help the suffering we don’t have to join their pain or be miserable. Instead, we can be buoyed by a sense of hope, of what is possible through helping. Being compassionate and generous is fun. Again Thurman cites the Dalai Lama – who’s a great example of joy, despite how deeply he feels the pain of the world.

We can end our self-centered focus, thinking instead of how to help someone else – even a pet! – to be happy. And as soon as we make someone else happier, our whole perception broadens. Suddenly, we’re happier too.

My (&GBS’s) 2 cents

We don’t have to be Buddhist scholars to appreciate the value of focusing less on our own boring dramas and more on how we can contribute to our world. Indeed, the Irish-born, Nobel-Prize-winning writer George Bernard Shaw noted something similar more than a century ago:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

This is the irony of compassion, the karmic trick of kindness. When we think about ourselves, those ailments and grievances loom large in our lives. It’s when we turn our attention to others that we somehow stumble onto the ‘true joy in life’.

This got me thinking that venting can be therapeutic, but it rarely gets you a solution, since:

• You often vent to someone who has no power to fix the problem – your spouse about your boss, a friend about your spouse, the cable guy about your bank manager.
• If you do speak to someone who can help, you can be so busy letting off steam – I’ve been in this queue since 9.47am – that you fail to ask for what you want – I’d like you to take my forms and send the new checkbook in the mail please.
• If you’re cross, your manner can make it hard for the person who can help, to want to help – Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries; now where’s my refund?

When faced with a frustrating customer experience, snarky email from a colleague, or other button-pushing situation, I’ve found it helpful to separate the response into two parts:

1. Expressiveness 
Here’s where you rant to a friend, yourself or your therapist. You do it to get something off your chest, to dial down the frustration. This is emotion management, pure and simple. You don’t do it to fix the problem, you do it to feel better. Think of it as taking the emotion offline.

Once you’ve done the expressing that may be enough. Not every frustrating experience has to be handled – some things are just frustrating. But if you do want to fix the situation, you need to change gears.

2. Effectiveness
Being effective involves time, thought and composure. Here’s where you decide what you want to happen, and you work out who to approach and what to ask for. If it’s an email you work out what to put in your reply – and remember, you need to take the emotion offline, not sneak it in between the lines.

To have the best chance of a good solution it helps if you:

• Address the person with the power
• Be succinct and clear about what you’d like them to do
• Be pleasant.

Getting into the habit of disentangling expressiveness from attempts at effectiveness will likely bring you:

• Less morning-after email remorse following a hot-headed reply
• Better customer service
• Less frustration
• Happier relationships.

Try it! And if it doesn’t work, please vent offline before you tell me about it.

Long story short, I contacted the company’s HO and they were happy to send me a replacement. For quality testing they asked me to drop the broken one off at the department store counter.

When I went there today with the broken lippie, the lady** I’d spoken to previously rushed to her bag and pulled out her own unused lipstick from the gift, and offered it to me. She’d brought it to the store in the hope I’d return soon. Can you believe it?

I assured her there was one on the way for me, but I felt like I got a second gift anyway.

People are so nice. 

*Not real company. Real company was Elizabeth Arden.

**Don’t know if she was a lady, but her name was Sharon.

I was cycling at the gym the other day when the guy on the next bike started chatting. (The etiquette of working out is a whole other topic on which I’d love to rant but, at least for now, won’t.) I removed an earbud, and he asked what I was listening to.

‘An audiobook’, I puffed.

‘You and your books!’ he said. ‘You’re always reading.’

How did he know I was always reading? I was stunned. I could have sworn I’d never seen the guy in my life. Suddenly I felt very visible. Could people at the gym see me, even with my head down under a cap and my mind lost in the current playlist/podcast/(audio)book? I’d always figured that since I didn’t notice them, they didn’t notice me.

It got me thinking about how we can make an impression on people, even when we don’t realise it.

Like the guy performing nasal excavation at the lights who thinks that because he’s in his car, we can’t see him.

Or the parent who laughs at some obnoxious comment by their 3-year-old, saying ‘I don’t know where she gets it from’. She gets it from you, dude; you talk like that. Just because you’re not talking to her doesn’t mean she’s not paying attention.

Or people who elbow and shove their way onto peak-hour trains as if it’s the running of the bulls and then demurely take their seats like they’re Emily Post. Do they think that avoiding eye contact renders them invisible to the naked eye?

People notice us – what we say, what we do, how we act when we think no-one’s looking. Without meaning to, we can be setting an example for kids, giving insights into who we are, even motivating others to copy us or be nothing like us.

One of my tricks for deciding what to do when I’m not too sure of myself is to imagine I’m on a reality TV show (it’s the only time I have such fantasies – honest!). How would I feel if my behaviour were public? Proud? Ashamed? Wishing I’d added a coat of lip-gloss? It’s a great way to work out who you want to be.

After the conversation with my bike-neighbour, I realised that people see us, no matter how oblivious we ourselves may be. Being on reality TV is a lot like real life. Except for the prizes.

I’m rather loose when it comes to compliments. I sprinkle those babies like chocolate on my triple-shot cappuccino. It’s almost embarrassing how often I catch myself telling a complete stranger she looks hot in her boots or mentioning to a service person that his knowledge is a huge help. I love how a sincere compliment can tip my day from puce to golden, so I’ve made a habit of sharing it when I appreciate something. (Within reason – I wouldn’t write a compliment on a well-constructed exam question paper, for instance. OK I did once. But only because all the option (E)s were witty.)

The cool thing is, although I do it to put a little happy into someone else’s day, I usually get back a whole lot of happy for me. Often it’s a big smile and a thank you. Sometimes it’s more interesting.

Take today. There’s a woman at the gym who has no idea how gorgeous she is. She’s nearly fifty but has a nice figure, a beautiful face and a lovely, warm manner. She was wearing a deep blue jumper that made her face ‘sing’, and I told her so. Suddenly the shields went up. Alarmed, she explained that she hadn’t had a shower that morning, hadn’t combed her hair and sometimes didn’t even wash her hair before coming to the gym (I never do any of these things before the gym because, you know, IT’S THE GYM! You go there to sweat! Oh, but I do wear Juicy Tubes. In Groseille. )

She must have thought I had mistaken these egregious grooming oversights for an attractive appearance, and was determined to save me from the misapprehension that she looked nice, what with her brazenly uncombed hair and all. Her tirade continued, presumably in the hope I would spot my error (Oh. It was your uncombed hair. And here I was thinking that blue suited you. What a dolt!) and retract my observation before it could penetrate. I had to interrupt and say ‘Just take the compliment!’ at which she stopped, inhaled the fact that someone thought she looked great in blue, and said ‘Thank you’. She had to make an effort, but she allowed the nice feeling in. She left smiling. And you know what? So did I.

There’ve been times when I’ve complimented a stranger on something they were wearing, or having a nice voice, or handling something smartly, and seen them absolutely glow in response. Seeing that is a lovely buzz.

Other times a compliment can get right under a person’s skin.

I was once toward the back of a long queue for the women’s restroom at a conference. I noticed a girl walk up and stand outside a separate, wheelchair-accessible restroom. When it became vacant she called up the long line so the next person on the queue could use the available cubicle. I commented to her that it was a cool thing to do, especially as no-one would have known if she’d popped in there herself. Her eyes filled with tears and she turned bright red. She whispered ‘Thanks for noticing’ and gave me the sweetest smile. I bet she’s someone who often does nice things that no one notices. This time, someone noticed and said so, and she felt pretty damn good.

As I waited on that queue, with scores of women tensing their pelvic floor muscles like it was an impromptu Pilates class, I felt pretty damn good too.

The short film In My Language (8:35 minutes) is touching, profound and confronting.

From about 3.10 seconds the actions seen in the first part are ‘translated’. It makes me re-think how I perceive communication, language, intelligence – and happiness.