20 Simple Tools for Happiness

Happiness is a journey, not a destination; happiness is to be found along the way not at the end of the road, for then the journey is over and it's too late. The time for happiness is today not tomorrow. --Paul H. Dunn 

Tip of the Day:
"Happiness is ephemeral, subject to the vagaries of everything from the weather to the size of a bank account. We're not suggesting that you can reach a permanent state called "happiness" and remain there. But there are many ways to swerve off the path of anxiety, anger, frustration, and sadness into a state of happiness once or even several times throughout the day." This Reader's Digest article offers 20 ideas to help get you started. [ more ] 

Be The Change:
If you could add your own happiness "tool" to the list above, what would it be?

Three Words of Wisdom

When I dig another out of trouble, the hole from which I lift him is the place where I bury my own. --Chinese Proverb 

Inspiration of the Day:
"One evening I was parked in front of the mall wiping off my car. I had just come from the car wash and was waiting for my wife to get out of work. Coming my way from across the parking lot was, what society would consider, a bum. From the looks of him, he had no car, no home, no clean clothes, and no money. There are times when you feel generous but there are other times that you just don't want to be bothered. This was one of the "don't want to be bothered" times." So begins a real-life story about an ordinary encounter that had extra-ordinary results... [ more ] 

Be The Change:
Give someone something they need today -- even if it's just a compliment

Alternative Medicine Is Mainstream

Everything we think, everything we say, everything we do, is either health creating or health negating. When we begin to look at health and healing that way, we can enter the realm of health creation from anywhere -- nutrition, exercise, contemplative practice, relationship. --Dr. William B. Stewart 

Good News of the Day:
Heart disease, diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer and obesity account for 75% of health-care costs, and yet these are largely preventable and even reversible by changing diet and lifestyle. The latest scientific studies show that our bodies have a remarkable capacity to quickly heal if we address the lifestyle factors that often cause these chronic diseases. Many people tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as a new drug, laser or high-tech surgical procedure. They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lifestyle -- what we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, how much exercise we get, and the quality of our relationships and social support -- can be even more powerful than drugs and surgery. This Wall Street Journal Article shares further. [ more ]

Submitted by: Eric Case

Be The Change:
Incorporate an additional, healthful choice into your life this week.

The Big Fun Box

Healing yourself is connected with healing others. --Yoko Ono 

Good News of the Day:
Grant Prather knows what it's like to spend endless days in the sterile environment of a hospital room surrounded by tubes and treatment trays. Prather, 26, was born with cystic fibrosis, a debilitating disease that can progress to a systemic failure of the lungs, liver, pancreas and intestines. At one point, the doctors told his parents to prepare for his funeral. Although there's no cure for CF, Grant pulled through, but relied on an oxygen tank to breathe until his double lung transplant in 2000. Now he's done things he never dreamed possible, such as going to college, driving, running and bringing kids in hospitals a chance to have fun through his non-profit, The Big Fun Box. [ more ] 

Be The Change:
Take a peek at the items inside The Big Fun Box, and see how little everyday things can help light someone's day. [ more ]

Financial Literacy for the Masses

I have seen, time and again, that given an informed choice, the poor do not want a hand out, but simply a hand up. They want the dignity that comes from doing for self. That education is the ultimate poverty eradication tool, and when you know better, you tend to do better. --John Bryant 

Fact of the Day:
For years John Bryant has been telling anyone who will listen about the problems caused by widespread ignorance of finance. In 1992, in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, he founded Operation HOPE, a non-profit organization, to give poor people in the worst-hit parts of the city "a hand-up, not a handout" through a mixture of financial education, advice and basic banking. Among other things, Operation HOPE offers mortgage advice to homebuyers and runs "Banking on Our Future", a national personal-finance course of five hour-long sessions that has already been taken by hundreds of thousands of young people, most of them high-school students. He calls the attempt to help people help themselves out of poverty through financial literacy and economic opportunity the "silver-rights movement." This Economist article shares more. [ more ] 

Be The Change:
The FDIC created a program called Money Smart to help people enhance their money skills. Check out the training modules, or share them with someone who could benefit from them. [ more ] 

Are you Socially Intelligent?

Simply paying attention allows us to build an emotional connection. Lacking attention, empathy hasn't a chance. --Daniel Goleman 

Fact of the Day:
It is not enough to be intelligent, or even emotionally intelligent. The rules of the game have changed: we also have to be socially intelligent. So concludes Dr. Daniel Goleman, the bestselling author who first coaxed the idea of emotional intelligence into public consciousness. In his recent book, "Social Intelligence," Goleman presents a manifesto for a more compassionate, more socially interconnected, world. Mirror neurons -- the special brain cells that allow us to empathize and "catch" each other's emotions -- mean that human beings can wield great emotional power over others. Goleman finds this troublesome: "Mirror neurons make us far more neurally connected than we ever knew; this creates a pathway for emotional contagion. If you really care about people, it gives a new spin to the term social responsibility: what emotional states are you creating in the people you're with?" [ more ] 

Be The Change:
In this 4 minute video, Daniel Goleman explains Social Intelligence and the role of the brain in establishing rapport in human relationships. [ more ]

What if only religious weddings were legal?

Imagine a country where marriages between inter-religious couples are only legal if they occur outside its borders -- where there are, in fact, no civil weddings at all. That country is Lebanon.

Civil weddings are recognized in Lebanon, but they cannot take place inside the country. Marriage, divorce and inheritance are regulated according to the conventions of Lebanon's 18 recognized religions.

Help secure a place for civil marriage in Lebanon. »

The result is that people in Lebanon who don't believe in religious weddings have to go abroad to get married (if they can afford it). This is a problem for:

• couples who are Hindu, agnostic, Bahai, atheist, or members of any of the religions excluded by the country's constitution;
• couples who come from different religions; and
• couples who share the same faith but see themselves as secular.

Please urge Lebanese officials to recognize the right of citizens to civil marriages. »

Thanks for taking action! Samer ThePetitionSite

Youth Beat - Lasting or fleeting teenage relationships

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: I'm all for washing my family's dirty linen in public

The Tom and Rickie show: Why the relationship of rock's superstar couple was doomed

"In 1979, Rickie Lee Jones became the rock superstar that her lover Tom Waits had never been. In an extract from his new biography, Barney Hoskyns recalls the drugs and envy that blighted Waits's wildest romance"

Assault Advice: Whitney Houston tells Rihanna to forget about Chris

Coming from teary eyed Whitney Houston, Rihanna should forget about Chris Brown and cut all ties so she can avoid the mistakes she made.

Publish Post

Robin Givens explains abusive relationships

AMY WINEHOUSE’S husband is refusing to take her phone calls - after falling in love with a SCHOOLGIRL

Struggles To Talk Openly And Honestly

Jodie Foster ends her 14-year lesbian relationship

The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

People exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced. --T.S. Eliot 

Tip of the Day:
Brothers Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman followed different paths in life, but they decided to collaborate on a book when they realized that Ori, with his MBA, and Rom, with a Ph.D. in psychology, kept running into the same dynamic puzzle through their work: What makes smart people make irrational decisions? In "Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior," the brothers Brafman attempt to explore several of the psychological forces that derail rational thinking. Some of the questions they address include: How do these forces creep up on us? When are we most vulnerable to them? How do they affect our careers, businesses, personal relationships? When do they put our finances, or even our lives, at risk? And why don't we realize when we're getting swayed?  [ more ] 

Be The Change:
Practice becoming more aware of the different factors which influence your own decision making. 

5 Healthy Foods To Add To Your Diet

Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food. --Hippocrates 

Fact of the Day:
When it comes to eating, most of us are creatures of habit. Even when numerous studies point to foods that are full of valuable health-enhancing nutrients, we tend to resist adding them to our daily diet. More often than not, our excuse is that we simply don't know how to prepare them or incorporate them into meals. Here are five superior foods nutritionists recommend.  [ more ] 

Be The Change:
Resolve to eat more healthily this year.

Are You a Servant Leader?

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. --Max DePree 

Inspiration of the Day:
Servant leadership is one of the most talked about yet least critically examined leadership philosophies. While many people identify with this leadership approach, an equal number are cynical and question whether such expectations of leaders are realistic. The following article provides a fascinating introduction to the concept based on the work of Robert Greenleaf and Larry Spears, and illuminates the 11 characteristics that identify a servant leader. (PDF, 800KB) [ more ] 

Be The Change:
Are you a servant leader? Explore the brief questionnaire in the above article. 

100 Most Beautiful Words

The poet produces the beautiful by fixing his attention on something real. --Simone Veil 

Fact of the Day:
Ever wondered what the most beautiful words in the English language are? Dr. Robert Beard, who has been defining words for the last 30 years, shares his top 100. [ more ] 

Be The Change:
"I used to misspell beautiful a lot. Never could quite remember that the e went before the a." A line from a touching piece on the power of a kindergarten teacher who nurtured the essence of beauty over its form. [ more ] 

Dr. Campo's Healing Words

Poetry is important. No less than science, it seeks a hold upon reality, and the closeness of its approach is the test of its success. --Babette Deutsch 

Good News of the Day:
There is something deeply dissatisfying about going to the doctor and leaving empty-handed -- no prescription, no pills. We often believe that any bodily illness will disappear once we ingest the appropriate pill. Aspirin cures headaches, caffeine wakes us up, and going to the doctor when we're sick is the magic ticket for an antibiotic that will quickly restore our health. Dr. Rafael Campo, however, is a physician who attempts to transcend the separation of the mind and body entrenched in our biomedical system, and he does, perhaps surprisingly, by writing poetry. A Harvard Medical School trained physician, Campo's aim is to heal the body, but he also branches away from classical medicine by using poetry to heal the soul. To Campo, poetry "reinterprets [illness] as the beginning point to healing."  [ more ] 

Be The Change:
Share your favorite poem with someone today

George Best and I: My life-changing relationship with the fiery footballer

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The perfect relationship doesn't exist: Jennifer Aniston learns to compromise

ButlerWebs

Funny Jokes

A MOTHER'S DICTIONARY

Girlfriend 1.0

Thats your sister

Comebacks to Pickup Lines

A TESTING QUESTION

A guy's wife asks, "If I died would you re-marry?"

He replies, "Well, after a considerable period of grieving, we all need companionship, I guess I would."

She says, "If I died and you remarried, would she live in this house?"

He replies, "We've spent a lot of time and money getting this house just the way we want it. I'm not going to get rid of my house, I guess she would."

So she asks, "If I died and you remarried, and she lived in this house, would she sleep in our bed?"

and he says, "That bed is brand new, we just paid two thousand dollars for it, it's going to last a long time, I guess she would."

So she asks, "If I died and you remarried, and she lived in this house, and slept in our bed, would she use my golf clubs?"

and he says, "Oh no, she's left handed."