How More Choices Can Create Less Happiness
January 8th, 2010Ed here again…
Barry Schwartz, a Professor at Swarthmore College, has written a marvelous book titled The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, which provides an amazing strategy to get happy.
He urges people to stop being maximizers and start being satisficers. No that is not a misspelling - he uses the term satisficer. So what is a maximizer and a satisficer?
Schwartz says these are two main strategies for how to live. If you’re a maximizer you want the absolute best and will not settle for anything less. If you’re a satisficer you’re happy with what’s good enough, and once you find it you feel no urge to comb through and evaluate every available option.
With the huge abundance of choices in modern America evaluating all the available options before deciding can easily overwhelm anyone.
Schwartz notes that the rate of serious depression in the U.S. has tripled over the past two generations. This happened at the same time that Americans in general experienced dramatic increases in income and consumer spending.
How could that increased choices bring suffering and depression?
The process of choosing and purchasing these things causes maximizers to suffer because they want to always acquire the best.
That requires a great deal of thought, research, time and energy into making your choices.
Maximizers give up time they could have spent much more enjoyably on other things like taking a stroll, spending time with a friend, reading a good book, sight seeing, seeing a movie or playing a game of golf or tennis.
On the other hand The satisficer isn’t obsessed with choosing the absolute best. They are happy with what’s good enough so they are able to spend much more of their time doing things that bring them real pleasure and satisfaction.
So next time you obsess about researching anything you are choosing, realize that the time you spend on this will be time you will never be able to get back.
Maybe better to make a quick decisiont and go do something you really enjoy.
Joy, Abundance, Peace and Healing
Ed Osworth
The Joy Professor
Author “Unstoppable Joy! A Happier You in 12 Simple Steps”
The Incident That Motivated Me to Give My Book Away
January 5th, 2010The Incident That Motivated Me to Go Crazy and Give My Book Away
Ed Osworth - The Joy Professor here. I have been swamped with questions about why I decided to give my book away - since it is already in bookstores. Am I crazy?
I will explain exactly the incident that motivated my change from selling my book to gifting my book.
This year I’ve taught many live Unstoppable Joy classes in Eugene Oregon. The experience was fantastic and it gave me a brand-new perspective on my work.
Every week our group would gather and every week the level of Joy would increase.
And every time I gave the classes something would happen that changed me.
I would look out into the group and I would see someone’s eyes light up when they finally realized how important joy is to their life and discovered their power to create it themselves.
There was a certain student, a single mother recently divorced who was so sad during the first few sessions. It was obvious that she felt life was crushing her. With two teenaged children to support and husband gone her life was very challenging. Even affording the gas to get to the class was a major challenge.
About the fourth session I could see that she had a major breakthrough. She had been practicing the joy creation exercises and they took hold of her. In a few short weeks her eyes had gone from sadness and depression to happiness and elation.
She came up to me after that class in tears expressing her gratitude to me. She said that the simple lessons of Unstoppable Joy and turned her everyday existence around.
No, the challenges in her life had not all magically disappeared. But the way she saw her problems and challenges had entirely changed. She now woke up in the morning looking forward to the day, whereas before she dreaded waking up at all.
While I drove home that evening from class I had a major personal awakening.
There is a crisis going on in the world right now. Job loss, retirement accounts devastated, wage cuts, bankruptcies, lack of credit and soaring interest rates.
It is a crisis that for some has made their future look very uncertain. So many things have shifted economically that millions of folks out there feel like they’re at the end of the ropes.
And many of the folks who need the information in “Unstoppable Joy” the most are the ones who can least afford to pay for it.
I realized that I could no longer hold the powerful information contained in my book from those who could not afford it in these challenging times.
The simple lessons are so powerful that I have seen student after student literally improve every single moment of their day by using them.
To me it simply would not be right to limit the spread of that same joyous effect to as many folks as possible by insisting on payment.
So I created a digital copy of Unstoppable Joy in that will be freely distributed to every single person who signs up for my inspirational messages of my free “Joy News Today” newsletter.
Please help me to spread the joy as far as possible. When anyone in your life looks like they could use more happiness, send them to the site
so that they can get their own copy of “Unstoppable Joy.”
Working together we can spread the word far and wide that no matter what the circumstances in your life everyday joy is still an attainable goal.
As a wise man once said “Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional”.
Help me to reduce the suffering part for as many people as we can.
Joy, Peace, Abundance, and Delight
Ed Osworth
The Joy Professor
Redefining Desire and Murphy’s Law
June 8th, 2009Ed Osworth Here.
Redefining Desire and Murphys Law.
As hard as this may be to believe, all of your life youve been getting exactly what you desire.
I am not kidding.
So how come your life is so rough? How come you dont have the things you really feel that you wanted
Why is it that life seems such a struggle? I mean that if you are really getting what you desire how could life seem like it is full of things you dont want?
Believe it or not it is because you have been deliberately taught that you are not very powerful.
To put it more simply, you have been taught to desire things that are not in your best interest. And the way you were taught to do this was by teaching you that you are not really very powerful.
When people ask Ed, what do you think is the biggest problem in the world today? here is what I tell them.
I tell them the biggest problem is that people simply have no comprehension of how powerful they are. Because they have no idea how powerful they are, they constantly shoot themselves in the foot with their powerful minds.
By thinking self destructive thoughts that keep them from their desires.
The problem has never been that anything that the universe creates is difficult to obtain. All you have to do is ask for it.
But youre asking must be consistent. You cant be sending conflicting messages and expect to produce anything. And 99.9% of the people I encounter in America dont have a clue what theyre asking for. And their lives are miserable, because they receive it.
Let me give you an obvious, but pervasive example. There are many people I run into that believe in an absurd piece of logic, known as Murphys Law. Murphy was obviously a very unhappy and miserable human being, if in fact he ever existed.
He decided that the way the universe ran with the everything that can go wrong will go wrong. The problem is, because he believed it he was absolutely right for his world.
Since his own personal experience after formulating this law reflected that the law was true. He cited to tell everybody else about this new way of looking at things. At first, Im sure people laughed like it was a total joke, but eventually it seems like people started taking it seriously. How many times in your life do you hear one person or another quoting one version or another of Murphys Law?
So the law travels through society, one person spreading it to others. Until millions and millions of people know about this insane piece of logic. Murphys Law. It become so ingrained in the human consciousness that virtually every single person in America knows what it is.
Here is the part that I find absolutely hilarious. Murphys law could not be further from the truth of how things run in this galaxy. Even if you have no belief in God or higher beings or spirits or anything, all you have to do is simply look around the world to see the Murphys Law could not possibly apply to anything.
If Murphys Law is true, and everything that could go wrong will go wrong, even the Big Bang couldnt have created anything, because everything wouldve gone wrong. Its one of those ideas that when you look at it from a different perspective is completely absurd.
Now I know most of you reading this dont really believe in Murphys Law. But Im just using it as an easy example. Theres many more interesting belief systems out there that we pick out and try believing they are true.
Think of all the people in the world such as Oprah Winfrey raise themselves up from virtually nothing and accomplish what ever it is they wanted. How did they do this? Was it a miracle? They accomplished them because they believe these things were possible so they were able to manifest exactly the life they want it.
They certainly didnt base any of their plans on things such as Murphys Law.
The world is ready for Joy. Are you?
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Joy, Abundance, Peace and Healing
Ed Osworth
Author Unstoppable Joy! A Happier You in 12 Simple Steps
Unstoppable Joy! A Happier You in 12 Simple Steps a positive psychology “how to” book is available instantly at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.com or order at your local bookstore or at http://UnstoppableJoy.com
“If you are not in a state of Joy today, you are simply not paying attention to what is really important in your life” Ed
A Lobbyist Tale and the Judgment Toy
June 5th, 2009Ed Osworth, the Joy Professor Here.
On this summer like Friday I have a story that makes a point about our ease in slipping into judgement at the drop of a hat.
A huge obstacle to Joy is our fascination with “playing” a mental process we develop. This process is like a fascinating toy we play with that becomes a permanent distraction to the beauty and happiness that surrounds us.
That mental “toy” is our ability to judge the actions, motivations and judgement of others.
Judgement of others and Joy don’t do together. Never did, never will!
And most of the conclusions we reach while playing with that toy are flat out wrong! Many times they are based on pre conceptions and old memories that have nothing to do with today’s reality.
Let’s fire up that toy for a moment.
I’m gonna tell you a story about a professional paid political lobbyist in Washington DC.
What just went through your mind? Any pre conceptions there based on the first label I used to describe him?
OK.
His name is Dave Wenhold, partner at the firm Miller/Wenhold Capitol Strategies and president of the American League of Lobbyists.
More labels… having fun with the judgement toy yet?
Guess what this lobbyist Washington fat cat guy just did? hee hee
Tuesday in the foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building he had what he called the “Capitol PurSuit Drive”
The drive collected more than 50,000 items of business attire valued at over $2.1 million. The items will be given to local nonprofits that assist people in getting back on their feet and into the workforce.
“This is not giving a hand out, but a hand up,” says Wenhold.
What a great dude. No matter what, that is an excellent idea and a wonderful act of kindness.
You can put away the “toy” now.
But do it before the toy starts talking to you and saying… “he is just the exception…”
The world is ready for Joy. Are you?
World Congress on Positive Psychology Draws Over 1500 !
June 5th, 2009Ed Osworth Here.
My book “Unstoppable Joy!” is based on the concept that a state of
Joy is “normal” for humans.
Up until recently, the reaction when I would say that would be
disbelief.
How a short year changes things!
The whole idea of Joy being our “normal state of mind” has caught on
like wildfire in the scientific community this year.
In just it’s first year of existence, the International Positive
Psychology Association (IPPA) has grown to over 4,000 members from
80 countries!
And on July 18-21, Philadelphia will host some of best minds and
most positive thinkers in the world at the 1st World Congress on
Positive Psychology.
1500+ researchers, clinicians, educators, students, business
owners, coaches, consultants, and medical experts will
attend. Details here: http://www.ippanetwork.org/
I would be there but I will be in the middle of giving an 8 week
advanced class in “Unstoppable Joy!” in Eugene -
info at http://SchoolOfJoy.com
This is really wonderful folks that those who create our educational
systems and health systems have become so interested in Joy
Creation.
Something huge s going on here folks. All over the world, Positive
Psychology is redefining the way we think about mental health,
psychotherapy, education and business, to name a few.
It’s about time. We were all getting pretty exhausted grabbing
“stuff” and losing our Joy, peace and happiness.
The world is ready for Joy. Are you?
Unstoppable Joy Advanced 8 Week Training Coming in June!
May 27th, 2009At last…The rest of the “daily happiness” secrets will be revealed to a select group of lucky individuals.
With cooperation from Eugene’s Unity of the Valley the very first advanced training in Unstoppable Joy! A Happier You in 12 Simple Steps will launch in June. The course is an 8 week intensive beginning June 16th on Tuesday evenings from 7 to 9 pm.
This class will be given live and in person by Ed Osworth and Jenifer Hood co-authors of Unstoppable Joy!.
Participants in this first class will be required to sign a form granting us permission to use their recorded voice or image in future training materials. Because of this and the inevitable “first class glitches” we have reduced the cost of the entire 8 week series to only $49 total.
This includes your personal autographed copy of Unstoppable Joy!, all class materials, and upon successful completion, a certificate as an “Associate Professor of Joy”.
Ask yourself, “how much is my happiness, health and peace worth?”
Then take advantage of this truly once once in a lifetime opportunity. After this class the very same training will be priced at a minimum of $197.
Contact us at 541-678-7932 for details and reservations.
My Greatest Inspiration is a Man Whose Name I Can’t Remember!
May 22nd, 2009My greatest inspiration is a man whose name I can’t remember and who I only met for 8 hours.
I had a period in my early life where I lived as a drifter on the coast of Calif in the early 1970s. At the time I was living on a beach in Monterey with a group of hippies and beatniks in a cave. We would hitchhike into Monterey and dumpster dive for veggies - then bring everything back and make a giant stew over an open fire. We always had more food than necessary and would go up and down the beach inviting strangers to share it with us. Sometimes they would bring us cases of beer in return.
After watching my compatriots all get so drunk one night that they danced on the bonfire barefoot and all burned their feet, I decided that I had to get out of that scene and put my life back on track. I picked up my pack which had all my stuff and hitchhiked back to LA to get a fresh start.
As soon as my thumb went out a huge 1969 Country Squire station wagon pulled over. A nice gentleman and his son were in it, with about 1000 pounds of salmon they bought in Monterey and were taking back to LA. So I had a ride the whole way. Good thing as it had started raining and I only had a worn out cotton jacket and woud soon bev sopping wet without a ride.
I asked about him and his son and he told me just the basics. “I buy and sell fish.” He was a very modest and unassuming man.
Then to my surprise he turns and looks at me with a smile. “Ed, we have a long ride and I love stories. We’ve got 8 hours driving ahead of us so tell me your life story in detail.”
I was flabbergasted. No one had ever wanted to hear about me like that.
Who could possibly be interested in my stupid little life? Heck here I was flat broke sleeping on a beach. I felt like a loser and he wanted to hear everything about me!
He looked very conservative, dressed in a suit and I was a beach bum hippy from Hollywood, an odd couple indeed. I didn’t want to offend him or his son so I said, “well I will if you want but it involves some shady parts, some law breaking and even sex and drugs, I don’t want to upset you or your son.”
He laughed out loud. “Ed, every good story, whether a book, a movie or a life has all that and more. You look to me like one heck of an interesting story. My son is already asleep in the back. Just tell me the whole thing, warts and all. A great pleasure of being here on Earth is learning through others. My eyes can only see a little tiny slice of the world, your eyes will show me more.”
I never forgot those wise words. “My eyes can only see a little tiny slice of the world, your eyes will show me more.”
We drove beautiful highway 1 along the coast for hours. I talked. He bought me lunch at an A&W Root Beer stand while I chatered on. We drove on in the rain along the grey coast, the sun set, I talked. I started from as far back as I could remember and walked him through the traumas, the dramas, the failures and victories, the moral confusion of facing the Vietnam war and realizing I could not kill, the alienation from my parents that decision caused.
As the light dimmed to black and the car echoed with the rhythm of the windshield wipers slapping back and forth, I talked on and on.
What an amazing day. You learn a lot about yourself when you try and relate all those countless details of what you remember of your life to another person.
He never lost interest, no matter how mundane the detail, how pointless the narrative became sometimes.
Instead of disinterest this wonderful man would encourage me on, looking at me with amazement and delight as I went on for 8 hours straight. From the way he treated me you would have though he was listening to the President of the United States or the Pope. He really acted like it was the most interesting story he had ever heard.
When we reached my destination, Topanga Canyon exit in LA’s San Fernando Valley he let me out. He calle me over to the window and said ‘What an amazing story you are Ed”. Then he handed me $20, which in 1972 was about the equivalent of $100 today. I said, “Thanks I’ll be able to go get some food and survive for a few days.”
He said “No, that is not what it is for. This is for you to start a new prosperous life with, not to spend. You take this $20 and you use it to create your new life. Leave behind that interesting but sad story you told me and start a new one. A story with a very happy ending.”
He rolled up the window and I watched the taillights of his Ford Station Wagon fade away as he merged onto the Ventura Freeway in the drizzle. I looked at the $20 and burst into tears of gratitude.
By the next day I had already forgotten his name. I’m sure he forgot me soon afterward.
He changed my life forever with his acts of kindness. I did exactly with that $20 as he said.
Isn’t it funny how sometimes those whose names we cannot even recall can make the greatest difference in our lives?
10 Sure Fire Steps to Daily Happiness
May 18th, 2009A great article based on research in England on simpler ways to create daily happiness. 10 Easy Steps to Happiness That Really Work
A few years ago, a social experiment in improving happiness was undertaken in the village of Slough, England. Social researchers used known cognitive and social methods to improve the happiness of Slough and it actually worked. Measurements taken before and after the experiment showed a demonstrable rise in individual and collective happiness for the people of Slough.
American Schoool Board asks “Should We Start Measuring Joy and Happiness in America’s Schools?
May 15th, 2009Great post on The Leading Source the American School Board’s blog about implementing “happiness tracking” in schools. ….
What a fantastic concept. This positive psychology wave is hitting like a Tsunami. Just in time with the shift away from the ability to constantly accumulate material goods.
They ask in the post a very relavant question.
With education reform, should happiness be a factor to measure?
“So here’s the big question: what about schools? What areas in education could measuring, tracking, and implementing what makes people happy have a positive impact on the system?”
Here is the post
The Leading Source - American School Board Journal’s Weblog
Unstoppable Joy! A Happier You - Public Appearances and Book Signings in Eugene Oregon
May 13th, 2009Unstoppable Joy! A Happier You in 12 Simple Steps author Ed Osworth will be at the Art & the Vineyard Festival and the Lane County Fair. Books will be available for signing at the locations. Come meet Ed “The Joy Professor” and ask any questions you like.
The famous Art & the Vineyard Festival on the 4th of July weekend is held along the Willamette River on the lawn of Alton Baker Park near downtown Eugene’s Ferry Street Bridge. You can meet me there any of the three days - I will be at the author’s table Friday 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m - Saturday 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. - Sunday from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Ed will be at the 2009 Lane County Fair: THURSDAY, August 20: 11am-5pm - SATURDAY, August 22: 11am-5pm - SUNDAY, August 23: 11am-5pm, I’ll be located indoors, in the covered courtyard between the two largest exhibition buildings.
