happiness

Retire at 45

- Adam Clare

Tim Stobbs is set to retire at 45 because he wants to and he has tips to help you retire early. He has a good approach between balancing life and money with having to do work: essentially find out what you enjoy and be engaged with it and spend/consume as little as possible.

All the money in the world won’t keep boredom at bay. How many TV reruns can you watch? How many rounds of golf can you play? In my case I have too many things I want to do in life to spend my time working until I’m 65. I enjoy writing, love to cook, garden and make my own wine (which is actually good after I learned why I made my first batch undrinkable). I also like to fix up my house and I’m involved in my community as a school board trustee.

Tim’s description of himself on his blog:

Tim also knows he does not need a lot of money to be happy. In fact most of the stuff he loves in life he can get for free from the library. So that is helping out a lot as he tries cutting back to find the perfect balance point between spending money and being happy.

Read his tips at The Star and you can follow his blog at Canadian Dreams.

Ways to Build Self-Confidence

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Feeling self-confident feels good and there’s no reason why you should lack confidence because you, dear reader, are pretty awesome! I recently stumbled across a list of 63 ways to build self-confidence that are simple and easy to do.

  • Take yourself off auto-pilot – make deliberate decisions on what really matters to you.
    Next time you come up against a risk or a challenge, listen to what you tell yourself and look for a way that that inner dialog can be improved. Ask yourself, “What would make this easier?”
  • Scared of looking silly? You and everyone else. It’s no biggie so don’t let it stop you. Say it with me – “It just doesn’t matter.”
  • Don’t think for a second that you can’t be confident. There are already loads of things you do with natural self-confidence, you just have to notice them and get familiar with how it feels. Look for the things you do where the question of whether you’re confident enough never arises.

    • Read all 63 ways to boost your self confidence at Life Hack.

    Be Happy by Working and Spending Less

    - Adam Clare

    We first looked at curbing consumerism for better living theme back in 2007 and now the idea is spreading. Now, thanks to the ongoing recession, people are learning that all the stuff they bought didn’t really make them happy so they are getting rid of all their stuff.

    When you start buying less you have more disposable income to spend on experiences, and that, my friends, is the key to happiness. What are you going to talk about and remember fondly in ten years, the concert you went to or the new shoes you bought?

    Here’s a story about a person who downsized their junk and upsized their fun!

    Tammy Strobel wasn’t happy. Working as a project manager with an investment management firm in Davis, Calif., and making about $40,000 a year, she was, as she put it, caught in the “work-spend treadmill.”
    …
    Today, three years after Ms. Strobel and Mr. Smith began downsizing, they live in Portland, Ore., in a spare, 400-square-foot studio with a nice-sized kitchen. Mr. Smith is completing a doctorate in physiology; Ms. Strobel happily works from home as a Web designer and freelance writer. She owns four plates, three pairs of shoes and two pots. With Mr. Smith in his final weeks of school, Ms. Strobel’s income of about $24,000 a year covers their bills. They are still car-free but have bikes. One other thing they no longer have: $30,000 of debt.

    Keep reading at the New York Times.

    Here’s some info on how to stop shopping.

    Say Good Things About People

    - Adam Clare

    It turns out that if you speak highly about those you know then you yourself are a good person. New research shows that the way you think about others reflects on how happy you are.

    The researchers found a person’s tendency to describe others in positive terms is an important indicator of the positivity of the person’s own personality traits. They discovered particularly strong associations between positively judging others and how enthusiastic, happy, kind-hearted, courteous, emotionally stable and capable the person describes oneself and is described by others.
    “Seeing others positively reveals our own positive traits,” Wood says.
    The study also found that how positively you see other people shows how satisfied you are with your own life, and how much you are liked by others.
    In contrast, negative perceptions of others are linked to higher levels of narcissism and antisocial behavior. “A huge suite of negative personality traits are associated with viewing others negatively,” Wood says. “The simple tendency to see people negatively indicates a greater likelihood of depression and various personality disorders.” Given that negative perceptions of others may underlie several personality disorders, finding techniques to get people to see others more positively could promote the cessation of behavior patterns associated with several different personality disorders simultaneously, Wood says.

    Keep reading about this positive news.

    Vegetarians are Happier than Meat Eaters

    - Adam Clare 7 Comments

    I’m a vegetarian and I think I’m pretty happy most of the time; I thought it was constantly sharing good news that made me happy, but it might be my diet.

    If you still eat a lot of meat, you might want to reconsider your diet and get a little happier. 🙂

    The researchers found the vegetarians reported diets significantly lower in EPA and DHA, the omega-3 fatty acids that we get from eating fish, and which many studies have found are a key factor in improving both physical and mental health. So they expected to find the vegetarians would have higher incidences of issues like depression, anxiety, and mood problems. Instead, they found the opposite result. Vegetarians scored lower on depression tests and had better mood profiles than their fish- and meat-eating peers. “While dietary intake of EPA and DHA has an important role in brain function, we found no evidence that the absence of direct intake of these fatty acids in vegetarians adversely affects mood state,” the study reports. “These results challenge what is known about the link between dietary fats and brain function and suggest an unrecognized benefit of vegetarian diets.”

    Read more at Planet Green.

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