posted August 03, 2015 06:10 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:
Ami was a spy for the Kremlin.

It's all hush hush.

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As chicken as I am of everything, I would make a great spy

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posted August 03, 2015 06:37 PM            

quote:

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In the United States, the age-adjusted death rate from suicide grew by more than 11% between 2006 and 2011, even as the overall death rate from all causes fell almost 7%. (To put that another way, more Americans now die from suicide than from car accidents.)

The spike has been particularly concentrated among middle-aged Americans, with age-adjusted suicide rates rising by more than 30% over the past decade.

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Trying to size up the situation and see if it's just my perception or things are getting worse in some ways, because of cultural changes.

Pretty sure military suicides are responsible for a good part of that increase.

posted August 04, 2015 06:17 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:

@florence

I love Russell Brand and used to watch the Trews more, before I entered this laid-back phase of life I'm talking about, where his fast talk just doesn't hit the same satisfying note.

I don't pay much attention to the media so the dissatisfaction isn't coming from there in my case, though I see how it's hurting others.

I just feel like regular American life is too demanding, pushy, and complicated.

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Yes, he can be very full on.

I don't have a TV although I watch Netflix but even not being hinged to TV schedules has felt really good, freedom. I'm an Internet junkie though but forcing myself to unplug has felt good too. But it's so hard. I always think about how people can remember going out but no one ever thinks, or it must be rare, I remember that really good day I was surfing the Internet which to me is a sign it is unhealthy way to live.

Anyway, straying off topic but since technology came up.

sometimes think I was born to better survive harder times too. Mars sq uranus and thrill-seeking which has been destructive would be more useful in other times. I get weighted down under bureaucracy easily which I thinks uranus opposing 6th house sun.

posted August 04, 2015 08:47 AM            

I'm a bit giggling about Colombia to be honest hehehe

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I seem to have loved you in numberless forms...

AstroMandala

posted August 04, 2015 09:00 AM            

Happiness comes from choosing to be happy with whatever you do, strengthening your closest relationships and taking care of yourself physically, financially and emotionally.

Thus revealed a recent survey of Harvard’s class of 1980 – with data likely biased to those feeling good enough about their lives to respond to the survey. I compared responses between those “extremely happy” and the rest of the respondents.

These revelations are in line with two earlier studies: The Grant Study and a 2010 Survey of the same class.

Grant Study
The 75 year longitudinal Grant Study led by George Vaillant had two main findings:

Happiness is love.
If alcoholism is not the root of all evil, it is closely correlated with it.

2010 Survey
An earlier survey of this same group suggested that “happiness is good”. Actually, happiness comes from three goods. Everyone is motivated by a blend of 1. Doing good for others, 2. Doing things they are good at, 3. Doing good for me. Given this, Dan Doctoroff and I suggested our classmates (and everyone else) focus on three things:

Good for others:

Cherish your most important relationships.
Be a contribution.

Good at it:

Do more of what you’re good at and less of what you’re not so good at.

Good for me:

Take care of yourself, your health and well-being, your financial security, and your work/life balance.

2015 Survey
This year’s survey suggests you can be happier if you: Choose to be happy with whatever you do, strengthen your closest relationships and take care of yourself physically, financially and emotionally.

Choose to be happy with whatever you do
The correlation between happiness and occupation, income or wealth is far less that the correlation between happiness and how people feel about their occupation, income or wealth.

47% of those extremely happy said they thoroughly enjoy what they are currently doing versus
14% of everyone else

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62% have not and do not expect to hit a mid-life crisis versus
38% of everyone else

—————————————————————–

49% of those extremely happy said they are already pursuing their dreams versus
18% of everyone else

—————————————————————–

67% of those extremely happy said the happiest period of their lives is now versus
20% of everyone else

—————————————————————–

Strengthen your closest relationships
The most important happiness choice is to invest in your closest relationship whether it’s a spouse, partner, parent, sibling or friend.

75% of those extremely happy give a top box rating to the importance of success in their intimate relationships versus
49% of everyone else

—————————————————————–

77% of those extremely happy said the state of their relationship was either the “greatest” of “very good” versus
48% of everyone else

Take care of yourself physically, financially and emotionally
We all know that exercising and taking care of yourself correlates with good health. The happiest among us actually do exercise and take care of ourselves.

78% of those extremely happy said they exercise at least three times per week versus
57% of everyone else (and many of them lied)

—————————————————————–

93% of those extremely happy said they are in excellent or very good health versus
74% of everyone else

—————————————————————–

68% of those extremely happy think they are “set” or “on track” for retirement versus
49% of everyone else

—————————————————————–

10% of those extremely happy perceive themselves to be under stress versus
42% of everyone else

—————————————————————–

44% of those extremely happy said they are at peace with their work-life balance versus
13% of everyone else

Implications for you as an individual

Choose happiness in whatever you do.
Strengthen your closest relationships.
Take care of yourself physically, financially and emotionally.

Implications for you as a leader

Focus on how your team members feel about what they are doing even more than what they are doing.
Invest in relationships with your team members.
Invest in your team members’ physical, financial and emotional well-being.

Bottom line, happiness is a choice.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2015/05/27/the-secret-of-happines s-revealed-by-harvard-study/

In relation to that, or shall I say the source:

The Grant Study is part of the Study of Adult Development at Harvard Medical School. It is a 75-year longitudinal study of 268 physically- and mentally-healthy Harvard college sophomores from the classes of 1939–1944. It has run in tandem with a study called "The Glueck Study," which included a second cohort of 456 disadvantaged nondelinquent inner-city youths who grew up in Boston neighborhoods between 1940 and 1945.[1] The subjects were all male, white and of American nationality. The men continue to be studied to this day. The men were evaluated at least every two years by questionnaires, information from their physicians, and in many cases by personal interviews. Information was gathered about their mental and physical health, career enjoyment, retirement experience and marital quality. The goal of the study was to identify predictors of healthy aging.

The study, its methodology and results are described in three books by a principal investigator in the study, George Vaillant. The first book[2] describes the study up to a time when the men were 47 years of age, and the second book[3] to when the inner-city men were 70 years old and the Harvard group were eighty. In 2012, Vaillant and Harvard University Press published Triumphs of Experience, sharing more findings from the Grant Study.[4]

The study is part of The Study of Adult Development, which is now under the direction of Dr. Robert J. Waldinger[5] at Massachusetts General Hospital. The study included four members who ran for the U.S. Senate. One served in a presidential Cabinet, and one was President John F. Kennedy.[6]

The study is unique partly because of the long time span of the cohort, and also partly because of the high social status of some of the study participants.

Contents

1 Main results
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

Main results

George Vaillant, who directed the study for more than three decades, has published[7] a summation of the key insights the study has yielded:

Alcoholism is a disorder of great destructive power.
Alcoholism was the main cause of divorce between the Grant Study men and their wives.
Strongly correlates with neurosis and depression, which tended to follow alcohol abuse, rather than precede it.
Together with associated cigarette smoking, was the single greatest contributor to their early morbidity and death.

Financial success depends on warmth of relationships and, above a certain level, not on intelligence.
Those who scored highest on measurements of “warm relationships” earned an average of $141,000 a year more at their peak salaries (usually between ages 55 and 60).
No significant difference in maximum income earned by men with IQs in the 110–115 range and men with IQs higher than 150.

Political mindedness correlates with intimacy: Ageing liberals have way more sex.
The most-conservative men ceased sexual relations at an average age of 68.
The most-liberal men had active sex lives into their 80s.

The warmth of childhood relationship with mothers matters long into adulthood:
Men who had “warm” childhood relationships with their mothers earned an average of $87,000 more a year than men whose mothers were uncaring.
Men who had poor childhood relationships with their mothers were much more likely to develop dementia when old.
Late in their professional lives, the men’s boyhood relationships with their mothers—but not with their fathers—were associated with effectiveness at work.
The warmth of childhood relationships with mothers had no significant bearing on "life satisfaction" at 75.

The warmth of childhood relationship with fathers correlated with:
Lower rates of adult anxiety.
Greater enjoyment of vacations.
Increased “life satisfaction” at age 75.

Vaillant's main conclusion is that "warmth of relationships throughout life have the greatest positive impact on 'life satisfaction'". Put differently, Vaillant says the study shows: "Happiness is love. Full stop."

This is a very focused group study (the target group is rather specific - upper class men), but it is still interesting and the longest research on male happiness
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I seem to have loved you in numberless forms...

AstroMandala

posted August 04, 2015 09:17 AM            

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posted August 04, 2015 01:13 PM            

So I wonder how much of how we're all feeling is a function of life stage rather than truly reflective of the times. Like, would we be happy or miserable regardless of whether we're living suburban or urban or how much technology there is? I know the 40's is a very stressful time for most people because of hormonal changes (like menopause and andropause) and the double stress of childrearing and caring for aging and sick parents. Those things exist independently of smartphones' existence, you know?

posted August 05, 2015 01:58 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:
^ Yeah.

I feel like it's hard to find the balance because the responsibilities can be so onerous and non-satisfying (at least, I never fit in, in the corporate world...board meetings...zzzzz) and as you said, the thrills are supposed to get higher and higher, too.

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posted August 05, 2015 02:00 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:
Speaking of stress ~

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posted August 05, 2015 02:02 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by DopGang:
I went to an orientation that took place in an auditorium with lights dimmed for a presentation.
I sat all the way in the back and looking down all that I saw was phone screens like stars in the sky.
It can be kind of sad.

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posted August 05, 2015 02:05 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
^^ Exactly!
I think my generation (kids born in the late 80s and early 90s) was the last generation of kids that actually knew how to entertain themselves and play outside. In the 90s nobody had cell phones and video game systems were just beginning to be really popular. People had computers but the internet was dial-up and it was as slow as smoke off sh*t. When I was a kid me and my friends would play outside all day and come inside and play video games or watch movies all night. There was a healthy balance there! But as technology has advanced and become even more widespread and accessible people have completely checked out of reality. I didn't get my first cellphone until I was 16 back in 2007. Now kids that are 10 years old or younger have cell phones! It's sad because they are being robbed of their childhoods by this crap.

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Yeah. My first cell phone was like... just a phone. It had the game snake on it. But thats it.

posted August 05, 2015 11:30 AM            

I suspect, with the suicide rate in those professions, that the people were perfectionists before they chose those careers, and deal with personal failures in a very hard way. Also, the sheer stress of being accountable for the happiness of so many other people...while remaining rigidly accountable to the government and quality controls from other institutions. God I would feel SO trapped in that net.

As for kids on computers...it's all a new frontier. My kids all have Neptune in Aquarius, so it's kind of fitting that they are on computers.

A lot of it boils down to trust with us, that they know what they are and aren't allowed to do. We have rules like, "If you hear a bad word, click off the video and don't go to that channel again." My kids never use bad language and basically their behavior remains innocent. One reason I let them on computers is because we have no television reception at the house. And while there is risk involved with the internet, there is risk everywhere else, too. My daughter was actually more scarred by what she saw on the news at a friends' house than anything she's encountered on the internet...as far as I know. And we're really close.

The worst of it is, so much violence in all kids' material, including kids' movies and storybooks. I hate that, there is no good coming from that that I see.

And yet I believe in letting kids develop into who they are...as it turns out my Scorpio moon son has some morbid curiosities which I did see coming. So while other kids might see something gross and immediately pass over it, Scorpio moon will look, think, and want to discuss it.

We were actually all in the car once last month and he started talking about blood, scabs, and corpses, and my Sag son joked, "Isn't that great, Mom? To know what your kids are really thinking about??" and everyone laughed except Scorpio moon who resented it because it's all important to him. And I know not to twist it into something more sinister than it actually is, and creep him out by making a big deal of it. We just talk matter-of-factly about corpses. For all I know, he'll be a funeral director. He's not dangerous so I see no reason to fearfully restrict access to information he's interested in.

So anyway as the kids get older they do have freedom to explore their own interests on the internet, which is how my oldest (Sag) son picked up Japanese and made Japanese friends that he talks to every day (in English...he's not that good at Japanese.)

Which is not quite as satisfying on a personal level as hanging out with his friends in real life, but it's an experience I couldn't have had at his age, and it's pretty exciting to him.

posted August 05, 2015 11:43 AM            

I like to detach from the computer. When I'm with a friend, I like for them to be with me and not their computer.

Also I've never sent a text message.

I think I would go crazy about texting...I couldn't adjust to the ongoing suspense about when a person would text me back. It all feels like "emergency email" to me...and I don't want to be in an emergency state, or always on call, or feel like I'm always waiting for replies.

Those of you who adapted to it probably don't see it that way

posted August 05, 2015 11:50 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Aquacheeka:
One interesting thing that just occurred to me is the long-held wisdom that happiness is U-shaped. Like, people are generally very happy in their 20's and happiness declines in people's 30's reaching a decade-long low in the 40s, then it begins to gradually rise again from 50.

So I wonder how much of how we're all feeling is a function of life stage rather than truly reflective of the times. Like, would we be happy or miserable regardless of whether we're living suburban or urban or how much technology there is? I know the 40's is a very stressful time for most people because of hormonal changes (like menopause and andropause) and the double stress of childrearing and caring for aging and sick parents. Those things exist independently of smartphones' existence, you know?

Maybe my teen years would have been horrible regardless of living in suburban hell or in the city because, well, adolescence really sucks. But I do agree that there are more ways to bully now than ever.

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Great points. I believe this is true...well I think we are taught that life is a certain way, and it's not that way, and we sink down under the weight of that realization.

Letting my birthday twin Alan Watts have a say:

Life and Music (2:40)

Also around age 40 you start having the outer planets transiting square to your chart...currently I have Pluto square Pluto and Neptune square Neptune...then Uranus will oppose my Uranus in a few years.

Just...upheaval.

posted August 05, 2015 11:50 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:

This is just how it looks to me...that it would bring out my neurotic side.

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posted August 05, 2015 11:53 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by LeeLoo2014:
http://www.gfmag.com/global-data/non-economic-data/happiest-countries

I'm a bit giggling about Colombia to be honest hehehe

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Thanks for all your contributions to this thread, Lee!

And THIS...

America is #105?

Way below Ethiopia.

Okayyyyyyy........

That's a little worse than I expected.

posted August 05, 2015 11:59 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ami Anne:
A think a really big factor in life for happiness is to try to bless other people. Sometimes, I do this simply by doing charts and seeing if I can really, really give to the person. Sometimes, I try to do little nice things for people like giving little gift bags. Sometimes, I try to think of unexpected ways I can make people happy. The Bible says that one is more blessed to give than receive. Blessed means happy

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This is why I don't hate you even if you get on my nerves.

This is true about you.