"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?" ~ Henry David Thoreau How many of your daily activities are devoted to honestly purposeful, generative activity? Like ants, we move around busily from place to place and activity to activity, but how often do you …
Tag: happiness
The Golden Mean: Cognitive Brilliance!
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -- that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." ~ Aristotle David Brooks does it again with his thought-provoking summary of edge.org's "The Edge Question 2011." The event organizers asked participants: "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?"and what came back was fascinating. According …
The Happiness of your Life
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature." ~ Marcus Aelius Aurelius The quality of your thoughts is the one thing you have control over at the end of the day. The world around …
The Slide and the Quicksand
"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." ~ Epictetus No matter how much you accumulate in life, you will always have less than what you don't have. Whether you long for material possessions, power, influence or insider status, at …
A Fund of Wisdom, Integrity and Humanity
“I am persuaded there is among the mass of our people a fund of wisdom, integrity, and humanity which will preserve their happiness in a tolerable measure” ~ John Adams I wonder what John Adams would think of the current state of the fund of wisdom, integrity and humanity bequeathed to us many generations ago? …
The Joys which long to be Yours
You know what you express. Knowing is much more than "awareness of" in theory or concept, in fact, it implies union with a concept or idea. Joy can be known as it is the natural result of union with a blessing of any type; yet for joy to be known, it must be expressed.
Truth and Goodness
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." ~ Albert Einstein I've often marveled at the ingenuity of those standouts in history who dedicated their lives to the restoration of goodness and truth to their rightful place at the apex human understanding and function. It hasn't been easy. Human beings …
Secret O’Life
While driving to vote this morning I heard a James Taylor song that I have only heard once before. Entitled "Secret O'Life", Taylor suggests that the secret of life is "enjoying the passage of time." A simple idea, to be sure, but one that eludes many people in their frenetic quest for happiness and satisfaction. …
What Makes Life Worth Living?
One of the most exciting academic advances of our current era comes to us from the field of psychology. I was reading the monthly magazine published by the College of Literature, Science and the Arts of my alma mater, the University of Michigan, and I was surprised to see an article entitled "The Science of …
Altruism is Possible and Altruism is Real
I read a fascinating article in the New York Times called "Is Pure Altruism Possible?" The article's author, Judith Lichtenberg, is a professor of philosophy at Georgetown University who is writing a book on charity and her interest seems to be in part to discover ways to increase altruism in the world today. While much …
Gregory Hake 