Change Per Post

There are two traps in happiness.The first trap is deciding to make a tiny change when a big change is needed. If you hate your job, figuring out a way to stop working on the weekends isn’t going to solve the underlying problem.

The second trap – and I think the more common trap – is believing that a small change won’t make a difference, that only radical change can make you happier.

I’m constantly amazed by the big boost in happiness I get from small changes. Sometimes, though, it can be hard to identify the places where a small improvement could yield big happiness benefits.

So try these two steps if you feel like you need a happiness lift…

(Continue reading this post via The Happiness Project)

I’ve vowed before to give up fake food. It was one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2007, in fact.

But I fell off the wagon pretty quick. I did manage to give up the fakest of fake foods, my beloved Nutritious Creations chocolate-chip cookies.

Nevertheless, I was still eating tons of “food” that came in crinkly packages from corner delis. One-serving packages of Apple Jacks or Sugar Pops, Snackwell’s cookies, Nutrigrain bars…I didn’t kid myself that this “food” was healthy, but I ate a lot of it.

Somehow, reading Gary Taubes’s Good Calories, Bad Calories a few weeks ago finally convinced me to stop, cold turkey. And I haven’t had fake food in three weeks.

I know myself well enough to know that I had to give up all fake food, cold turkey. I’m in the same camp as Samuel Johnson, who remarked, “Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult…”

(Continue reading this post via The Happiness Project)