Happiness, and how to achieve it

Happiness, perhaps it's a trite topic. On the other hand, maybe we talk about it because we experience such a lack of it. Can you aim for happiness? Or should you shoot for satisfaction? Meaning? Accomplishment? and hope that happiness comes along as a side benefit?

I'm contemplating this because of a conversation I had last night with my darling, George. He loves his work. He's a chaired professor, so his motivation is not tenure. He simply loves what he does. He works for at least half the day each day of the weekend because he love it. He doesn't actually talk about his work much, but if he's away from it for too long he starts to miss it.

I wish I loved my work that much. Don't get me wrong, I like my job. In fact, just this week I turned down an offer from a big company you've all heard of to stay where I am, in a tiny little consulting company. But, I wish I loved it as much as George loves his. I suppose most of the people I know work to pay the rent, hopefully in something they don't find too objectionable, but to be faced with someone who loves his work makes me realize there could be more.

Is it a matter of creating it? Is it a matter of being busy enough that I don't have time to think about happiness? I recognize that I'm always happiest at work when I've got a deadline and I'm juggling stuff. Is that just because I don't have time to navel-gaze?

Iran on the Web?

The two most common languages used on the Web will not surprise you: English and Mandarin. The third most common will surprise you: Farsi!

(I hear this during a talk by a guy from the Council on Foreign Relations, so I believe it.)

Your Solopsism is Showing

New word for me, Solopsism: extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc. egoistic self-absorption. (dictionary.com)

Is blogging evidence of solopsism? Do I have anything to say that people actually want to hear? Is it self-indulgent?

Hyderabad & a Story With/Without a Moral

In the New York Times travel section this week was a short article on the rise in both tourist and business travel to Hyderabad, India. It reminded me of my first night in India, on a business trip in the summer of 2004, when I almost started a sectarian riot.

I was travelling with a colleague, Amar, a Hyderabad native, and Hyderabad was our first port of call. We had traveled 24 hours from Chicago to Frankfurt to Bombay to Hyderabad. It was exhausting. So, after sleeping most of the day, Amar called me and asked me to go out on the town with him. I was picked up in a Range Rover driven by Amar's real estate developer brother-in-law, his movie-star friend (married), his girlfriend and Amar.

As we walked into the newest dance club in town, by-passing the line, the actor was stopped for autographs and we tried to keep to the shadows to avoid the paparazzi, since his girlfriend was with us. After a long night drinking pricey drinks and dancing, we left the club and my hosts decided I needed a late night tour of the sights of Hyderabad. So, off we drove, drinking Chivas Regal out of the bottle, roof open, weaving around the old women stooped over sweeping the streets. At one point, we made a phone call to a Congress MP who was the friend of the brother-in-law. He and I drunkenly chatted about something or other.

They took me to Charminar, the 400-year old gate in the middle of the poor, mostly Muslim part of town where people were lined up sleeping on the sidewalk. Keep in mind my crowd of rich, drunk Hindus in a Range Rover with an immodestly-clad blonde in the back seat.

There's a small mosque at the Charminar, so Amar and I climbed out to go see it. I was wearing a short skirt, so I wasn't allowed in, but the mosque custodian smiled at me and gave me a small green flag with a white star and crescent. I was happy and climbed back in the car to show off my souvenir. All the guys in the car flipped out and thought is was a Pakistani flag, which it was not. So they climbed back out of the car, woke up a cop and started yelling about being real Indians, etc. People on the sidewalks started waking up. I started yelling "I'm Christian, I'm Christian" and herding my crowd back into the car. By the time we left half the square was awake and starting to move towards the car. And that was how I almost started a riot on my first night in India.

Is there a moral to this story? Is it:

1. Don't drink and drive.
2. Don't go to mosques in short skirts.
3. Understand the history including animosities of the places you're visiting.
4. Don't go out with your girlfriend when there are paparazzi around.
5. Drinking Chivas Regal makes you immune to political violence.
   

Vote, or suggest your own.

Life Lessons of Pinball

A few weeks ago George and I went to dinner with a friend. Afterwards, my friend suggested that we stop by a place around the corner with a pinball machine. I was sceptical - how silly to play pinball, but I didn't want to squash the enthusiasm of the others.

We walked in, I discovered my inner child, I learned that George is a pinball master and I had SO much fun. (Also, inexplicably, I won 3 out of 4 games.) So, George's secret skill at pinball comes from when he was writing his dissertation. He'd reward himself with a pinball game every time he finished a page.

I take life too seriously sometimes, turning up my nose at childish things like pinball. And I had a great time. I need to do that sort of thing more often! Maybe that should have been one of my new year's resolutions as well. Have More Fun!

Happy New Year!

As we enter the New Year, I thought I'd share a few resolutions:

1. Be more patient and accepting, both of myself and others, especially those I love the most. It's so easy to be snippy with the people you see every day. As for being accepting of myself, it's so easy to say, "I should have achieved XYZ by this point in my life and I'm a failure if I haven't." Instead I will say, I am where I am, I am what I am, and I will move forward with my dreams.
   
2. Work out more. Yes, I say that every year and look where it's gotten me.
   
3. Be unafraid of failure and have the courage to take risks, professionally and personally. This allows for the freedom to dream large dreams and think big thoughts. Otherwise, one is limited to risk-free, utterly attainable "silent desperation" that plagues so many who have been beaten down.
4. Have more dinner parties. After all, I love to cook and I love stimulating conversation.

My New Year started with champagne and spanikopita, spiced up with dancing in the living room next to the roaring fireplace (music courtesy of a group of wild Russians with a great iPod.) It's an auspicious start!

I wish all my readers a year energized by your ambitions and dreams, of deep-down satisfaction, and laughter.

Peace: What is it? and how do we get there?

Following the joyous holiday season, filled with love, giving and the occasional fight with a near & dear one, I wonder, What is Peace?

If I struggle to be in harmony with my flesh and blood brother, how can I be in harmony with my metaphorical one?

A Banner Day for Bigotry

Is Barack Hussein Obama really an Islamofascist, Osama bin Laden sympathizer in disguise? Is MN Representative Keith Ellison a threat to the American Way of Life? Give me a break!

CNN wonders out loud if Obama and Osama are connected. MSNBC guests say that his middle name is the same as the former Iraqi dictators and that he dresses like the President of Iran.

Virgil Good, a representative from Virginia, suggests that Keith Ellison, an American-born Muslim convert choosing to use the Quran for his swearing in, is a threat to the American way of life and evidence that we should close our borders to immigration.

Is the media pandering to the lowest common denominator, attracting the ignorant and bigoted? Has Virgil Goode, a representative from Virginia, forgotten that this country was founded on the principles of religious freedom? Yes on both counts.

I suppose it is human nature to create an us-and-them. In the US, vocal racism is no longer acceptable and we don't have Soviet or Communist bad guys anymore. So, apparently it's fashionable and acceptable to bash Muslims.

I am saddened and disappointed by the state of our public discourse.

Am I a Cultural Creative??

Today I'm doing some research on how environmental considerations effect consumer behavior. I've come across some market segmentation buzzwords. Maybe those of you with PR/advertising/marketing experience know all about this, but it's new to me. The first I came across was LOHAS - Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (lohas.org). I guess it comes as no surprise that the same folks who want to buy a hybrid also do yoga and eat locally-grown food. I'd just never thought of it as a definable group before.

LOHAS.org claims that about 30% of the adult US population falls into this category and that it amounts to a $228.9B market. Closely related are the Cultural Creatives. I checked out culturalcreatives.org, which is essentially selling the book of the same title, which originally coined the term. This is a broader group than LOHAS, constituting a $540B market!

There is a quiz on culturalcreatives.org that helps you determine if you are one of them. It sounds like such a nice title, that I thought I'd try it out. After all, who wouldn't want to be cultured, creative, creatively cultured, etc? So, I gave the quiz a chance:

• Do I care about my relationships? Yep.
• Am I concerned about violence targeting women and children? Of course.
• Do I want to see women reach parity with men in economic and social arenas? Absolutely.
• Am I aware of the problems of the world, such as environmental destruction, poverty, and exploitation? Definitely.
• Would I want to limit economic growth to solve those problems? NO!
• Would I want higher taxes to solve those problems? NO!
• Would I pay higher consumer prices to solve those problems? Quite likely.

So, am I a Cultural Creative? I want the world to be a better place. I've spent a career in alternative energy. I read about foreign affairs and am concerned about education and poverty in the third world, but limiting economic growth is not the solution. Am I a Free-Market Cultural Creative with an MBA? Amartya Sen's well-known book is called Development as Freedom. Micro-loans, expanding economic development, are the keys to solving poverty, exploitation and ultimately environmental degradation.

According to the website, "The Cultural Creatives care deeply about ecology and saving the planet, about relationships, peace, social justice and about self actualization, spirituality and self-expression."

I'm all for those things, but I'm not for protesting the WTO, being a global luddite, or imagining that limited economic growth helps anybody. Please take the quiz yourself and let me know if you are a cultural creative, and how that effects your consumer behavior.

Carbon Tax

I found an interesting paper this morning by Richard Cooper, an economist at Harvard, considering a Carbon Tax in the post-Kyoto world.

http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/cooper/papers/Kyoto_ct.pdf

And for reference, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change for the UK Treasury that was published a few weeks ago:

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/8AC/F7/Executive_Summary.pdf

Why Dolphin Log?

Dolphins are smarter than we are.

I've always admired them for using their big brains to swim in the ocean, play and eat sushi all day. Much more fun than what I plan to talk about here - energy, international affairs, Central Asia, policy, the Middle East, alternative energy, and some travel.