Tag: happiness

If you’ve ever had a pet, you’ve experienced the many benefits animals bring to our lives. They are friends and companions, sometimes even a part of who we are—and despite the occasional potty-training accident or destroyed shoe, our pets bring us untold amounts of joy, humor, love, and happiness.

For people who are experiencing depression, however, pets can provide something even more important: a reason to live, and to keep on living.

Peace, joy, and gratitude—feelings we all wish for, but ones that can be hard to come by in our stressful world. When we're bombarded with our own negative thoughts, it can make us feel as though we’re in a self-made prison of blame and judgments, making it feel impossible to relish the good in our lives. Happiness has a biological basis, and research shows that we can take steps toward creating a positive and healthy mental space, despite the stresses of living in a demanding, technology-driven existence.

Studies in neuroscience have led to some interesting discoveries in human behavior. Essentially, it has been discovered that novelty is a key driver of happiness and that this creates new, neural pathways, which deepen our levels of satisfaction. I immediately thought about the implications of this discovery for a long-term relationship like marriage.

If novelty makes us happy, then how can we remain happy in a relationship where the effects of time will automatically impact the novelty factor? Does this mean that we are pressured to trick our brains by re-creating novelty in marriage or does marriage demand a different pathway for satisfaction?

Doors slamming. Eyes rolling. Extended middle fingers. One-word discussions. Outrageous demands for more money, newer cars and less chores. In a survey, over 90 percent of parents who answered the question, "What are your top three parenting issues," all responded with either lack or respect or bad attitude.

But what’s strange is these same kids have friends whose parents they do respect! In 12 years of interviewing kids and parents, I know that most teens have what I call a Kool-Aid house, a home where kids of all stripes congregate, not because there are no rules, but indeed because there are strict rules about language, drugs, alcohol and behavior.

While vacationing in the Caribbean, I had the leisure to observe families, couples and individuals without being detected—like the fly on the wall. I wouldn’t exactly call it spying, just paying attention. When people wear scant clothing on the beach, stripped down to core behavior—without all the pretenses—you learn a great deal about human nature and most importantly your own.

My traveling companions asked me if I was on a Prozac drip because I was so cheerful.

For the most part, mothers across the globe have just one day dedicated solely to their hard work: Mother’s Day. I have to tell you I am not big on these one-day wonders. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the focused attention, but I think we should give honor to mothers every day. We should also honor ourselves by creating and maintaining a balanced life, the real meaning of why we celebrate special days like Father’s Day and Mother’s Day in general.

The story of the "white picket fence" family, riding off into the sunset with Prince(ss) Charming, or living Happily Ever After with our one true love is changing. Actually, the truth is that it has changed.

Old stories, like the one that has defined divorce as a failure or the one that led us to believe that we are somehow "less than" if we are single, are begging to be rewritten. Dear reader, resistance to these changes is futile and this is your invitation into the New Relationship Paradigm.