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Everyone has a unique set of things that they obsesses over, live for and geek out on.  And if we’re lucky enough to learn about this thing that sets someone on fire, our job is to respond with gas, not water.  Because giving people the space they need to lock into their element, even if only for a brief moment, is a way of saying yes to their joys….

I’ve never been one to hold grudges.  Getting mad at people for making mistakes that they didn’t know were mistakes at the time is exhausting and insensitive.  It’s easier to just let them off the hook and accept their imperfect humanity, rather than wrap myself up in wrongs and prosecute people for crimes past.  But although I’m quick to let the actions of others roll off my back, I do have…

Control is an illusion.  Human beings are meat puppets, bone machines, moist robots, collections of atoms, accidental byproducts of nature and, my own personal favorite, chimpanzees with a firmware upgrade.  We’re guided and constrained and manipulated by systems that we cannot understand. And that’s precisely why people continue to do things that give them the false sense that they are taming their world, taking command of its complexity and…

Sleep hygienists have clinically proven that waking up to an alarm clock promotes unhealthy sleep habits.  Ideally, we should learn our circadian rhythms, control our natural cycle, wake up to the light of the morning and honor our master clock, known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is located in the hypothalamus of the brain.  Of course, let’s not overlook the emotional component to waking up without assistance. Because doing…

Harvard’s most famous positive psychology professor writes that our culture reinforces the delusional state of chasing the ever elusive future.  That’s why people are not compensated for enjoying the journey itself, but for the successful completion of one. Because society rewards results and arrivals, not processes and journeys.  And the problem is, once people arrive at their destination and attain their goal, they mistake the relief that they feel for happiness. …

The paradox of happiness is, once you start looking for it, you leave it.  Once you start measuring it, you miss it.  And so, the solution, instead of squandering your energies trying to gauge how happy you are, or, worse yet, constantly reminding yourself of all the things you’re not happy about, start taking action in the direction of your values.  Do whatever you have to do to flood yourself with…

Much of life is learning to make the best of a bad situation.  Finding ways to appraise our condition positively, taking charge of our thoughts and refusing to stop until we come out on the other side with something meaningful.  In short, controlling our minds before our minds control us.  Cooperider first operationalized this process on an organizational level, dubbing it appreciative inquiry. It’s an intervention program to help corporate…

Coltrane’s band was famous for playing the same songs in the second set as they played in the first one, just to see if they could find something they didn’t find earlier in the evening.  They always did. They never stepped in the same musical river twice. That’s the beauty of jazz. If you do it right, redundancy becomes a mathematical impossibility.  What’s interesting is, the same rule can…

Bell’s book on the spiritual dimensions of romance reminds us that love is the giving away of power. The giving up of control in the relationship.  He suggests that there is no intimacy without vulnerability and transparency. And that to make our sacred partnerships thrive in the long term, they require a constant surrendering of all the desires within us to manipulate and change and fix the other person.  I spent several…

Here’s our standard approach to seeking happiness.  We project all of our hopes and dreams onto some object of our attention. We reach for the consolation of a momentary distraction. And we attach ourselves to what we think we simply must have in order to be happy.  Then and only then, will we finally obtain the love and peace and approval that we need to feel compete.  Of course, that never…