DISQUS

Hi Maya: As you say, the research shows that once you have enough money to cover your needs, additional money only has a slight impact on happiness.  Maybe for you it's not so much a question of happiness as much as needing to adjust to a new role in which you're not contributing to the family income in the same way as you were before.   It's amazing all of the beliefs we pick up about money from watching our parents.

Hi Maya: Just recently I read that Harry Truman had a calm space in his mind that he would retreat to when the world was going crazy all around him.  It's interesting how we can create a safe haven inside our minds regarldess of what might be going on around us. 

Hi Maya: I like your microexperiences approach.  It's closely related to the idea of making sure that you schedule fun and pleasurable activities into your day, which is one of the ways to be happy.  In addition, it's a good way to tackle procrastination because you're making unpleasant tasks smaller and more manageable and rewarding yourself with positive experiences.

Hi Maya: This was too cute.  Flavored coffee is my pee break.  When I'm doing something I don't enjoy I just tell myself: fifteen more minutes and it´s flavored coffee time.  And your blog looks great! Is that your oldest daughter in the photograph?  She's beautiful.

Hi Maya: Thank you for the mention. I love that graph. You do have to make an effort to simplify, and create the systems, rituals and routines that will help you to simplify, as well as adopt a new mindset. But once everything is in place your life flows so much easier and, like you say, you liberate time, resources, and attention to pursue your true heart's desires. I'm going to watch the John Maeda video now :-)

Congratulations on one year bloganniversary and for writing your first ebook Natalie. I wish you much success in your next year of blogging :-)

Hi Maya: What an ordeal, I'm glad you got out of that ditch OK (and, of course, no story is really complete without an astrologer :-) ). This reminds me of an article I read that explained that in the martial arts they teach you how to fall. Also, when you're training to be a comedian, they teach you what to do in case a joke flops. That is, they know ahead of time that you're going to fall or flop at some point, they prepare you for it, and they give you a strategy to get yourself back up. And that's what you've explained here, and you're absolutely right!

Hi Maya: Here's my entry for the quilt:
Happiness is the place where meaning, engagement and pleasure intersect.

Hi Jim: I have a couple of affiliate products on my blog but they're products that I use and find tremendously helpful. I had adsense for awhile but I took it down about three months ago because I just didn't feel right about having those ads on my site. Every blog has a different purpose and it's important to take that purpose into account when deciding if and/or how to monetize.

Happy birthday "Broadcasting Brain"! And I completely agree that you have to be continuously recalibrating and tweaking, measuring what works and what doesn't.

Hi Maya: Several studies have shown that once we have enough money to meet our basic needs, additional increases in money do little to raise our happiness level. Relationships, meaningful work, engagement, and pleasure are vitally important to happiness. You know, I see that you're very visual. You take concepts and turn them into slide shows or graphs; that's a great ability to have.

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A happiness quilt! What a great idea Maya. I'm definitely in. And thank you for the link. I'm going to stumble and twitter this.

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Hi Mark: Thank you for the link. I''d never heard of the Lateral Action or Wishful Thinking blogs; I'm on my way to check them out now :-)

Hi Maya: I think that happiness is a habit because it depends on our thoughts, and we should all create a habit of examining our thoughts to make sure they're serving us well. I enjoyed your story: it sounds like you had it tough for awhile there but came out on the other side the better for it.

I think the captain has the least integrity since he took advantage of the fact that the lady had no other option for finding her lover than getting the boat fixed, and he was the only one who could fix it (the captain makes me think of a loan shark). The lady had the most integrity since she thought she was doing what she had to do in order to get back together with her fiance. The fiance needs to revise his views of wrong and right, the world is not black and white.

Hi Maya: Just yesterday I was watching one of the TED.com lectures on how novel ideas are coming more and more from the customer, as opposed to coming from large corporations.  Because of the technology that exists today people are more and more able to turn their ideas into reality.  Software developers have used the concept of open collaboration for several years now, to great success.  I also found a book on amazon.com the other day where the authors basically relied on input from others to write the book, which they received via twitter and other social media.  Let me see if I can find these resources again and I'll send them to you via e-mail.  I think it's awesome that you're taking the first steps toward making your business venture come true.  

Hi Daniel: You can always just link to this post on your about page :-) It's nice to get to know you better!

Hi Maya: Do you know that when they teach you trial strategy in law school they tell you not to drown the jurors with endless facts, but to tell them a story? You also need to let them relate to your client by invoking an emotional response. I think storytelling is our most basic way of communicating with each other.

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Hi Maya: I was just going to interrupt my blog reading and go get some dinner and thought, "oh look, Maya has something new up, I'll read her article before leaving to get my dinner." I'm glad I did, that slide show was really sweet. And I'm sure your cat won't mind that last slide, cats just let everything slide right off :-)

Hi Maya: Congratulations, well deserved! I've enjoyed everything I've read on your blog. I love the photograph of the boy jumping up in the air :-)

Hi Daniel: The zombie look is great for you :-)

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Hi Daniel, I'm already subscribed to you, happy Halloween :-)

Hi Maya: I think it's great that you invite people from other cultures to join in your festivities. I spent a summer at college where my roommate was from Thailand. Whenever she went out to eat at Thai restaurants with her friends they would always invite me. I had a lot of great Thai food that summer :-) Have a wonderful Festival of Lights!

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Maya: How did you come up with this framework? It's excellent! It's as you say: my brain is saying don't buy those mini-donuts at the supermarket and the next thing I know I'm walking toward the mini-donuts, picking them up, and moving toward the cash register with them in my hand. I often say that I don't understand how people can smoke given that the package has a picture of sickly lungs on them, and yet the negative effects of sugar are well-documented and I eat it anyway. I think I'm going to do the following based on your suggestions:

1. I'm going to set a goal of allowing myself to eat sweets once a week.
2. I'm going to research the negative effects of sugar and write them down on an index card and carry it in my wallet (hopefully I'll find something visual because you're right, a visual is always more impacting).
3. I'll try to always have fruit handy so that I can eat that when I feel like having sweets, and I'll also increase my water intake.

Thank you Maya, this was very helpful :-)

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Maya: You're a pro at creating slide shows. The one you show here for blog action day is very powerful. I sponsor a child in Guatemala through CCF, I send money to Save Darfur, and I contribute with raffles that are held here in Panama for organizations that help children in need.

<abbr></abbr><abbr>Marelisas last blog post..Eradicating Poverty Through Human Ingenuity - Blog Action Day 2008</abbr>