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303. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Annie Duke

Genre:  Non Fiction, Psychology, Self Improvement, Science

288 pages, published February 6, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, lays out the case for treating your decisions as bets and how to improve the odds of making a better decision.  Duke conveys her message with a compelling mix of scientific research, interesting anecdotes from the domains of business, sports, politics, poker and her own personal experience.  She counsels that we should avoid “resulting,” i.e. evaluating a decision only on the basis of the result rather than the process that went into making the decision.  Even the best decision doesn’t result in the best outcome every time. There’s always an element of luck that you can’t control and there is always information that is hidden from view.  Her approach is to ask several questions:  How sure am I?  What are the possible ways things could turn out?  What decision has the highest odds of success?  Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time?  Is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making?

Quotes 

“What makes a decision great is not that it has a great outcome. A great decision is the result of a good process, and that process must include an attempt to accurately represent our own state of knowledge. That state of knowledge, in turn, is some variation of “I’m not sure.”

 

“Thinking in bets starts with recognizing that there are exactly two things that determine how our lives turn out: the quality of our decisions and luck. Learning to recognize the difference between the two is what thinking in bets is all about.”

“Improving decision quality is about increasing our chances of good outcomes, not guaranteeing them.”

 

“In most of our decisions, we are not betting against another person. Rather, we are betting against all the future versions of ourselves that we are not choosing.”

 

“…thinking in bets is not a miracle cure. Thinking in bets won’t make self-serving bias disappear or motivated reasoning vanish into thin air. But it will make those things better. And a little bit better is all we need to transform our lives.”

 

“Certainly, in exchange for losing the fear of taking blame for bad outcomes, you also lose the unadulterated high of claiming good outcomes were 100% skill. That’s a trade you should take. Remember, losing feels about twice as bad as winning feels good; being wrong feels about twice as bad as being right feels good. We are in a better place when we don’t have to live at the edges. Euphoria or misery, with no choices in between, is not a very self-compassionate way to live.”

 

“As Nietzsche points out, regret can do nothing to change what has already happened. We just wallow in remorse about something over which we no longer have any control. But if regret happened before a decision instead of after, the experience of regret might get us to change a choice likely to result in a bad outcome.” 

My Take

Thinking in Bets is a page turner of a book with some valuable content to get you thinking about how you make decisions. Annie Duke has done her homework which is reflected her discussion of the current scientific research.  She is also a strong writer and this book was hard to put down. My biggest takeaway was to try to avoid “resulting,” that is, the tendency to evaluate decisions solely on the basis of the result achieved.  Sometimes we get lucky or unlucky.  We shouldn’t take too much credit with the former and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up too much with the latter.  Appreciating the role of luck and our ingrained biases help us to make better decisions and live with both the positive and negative results of our decisions with greater equanimity.

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297. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Summer Youngs

Author:   Dalai Lama XIV, Desmond Tutu, Douglas Carlton Abrams

Genre:  Non Fiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Self Improvement, Theology, Happiness

354 pages, published October 18, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

In The Book of Joy, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu (both of whom are winners of the Nobel Prize,  spiritual masters, moral leaders, and are close friends), meet in Dharamsala for the Dalai Lama’s birthday and to discuss the concept of living a life of joy even in the face of adversity.  As narrated by Douglas Abrams, the book has three layers:  their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that underpin their own emotional and spiritual lives.  While both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been experienced significant adversity, they have found a way to use that struggle to be joyful and to spread joy to others.

Quotes 

“The three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on increasing our happiness are our ability to reframe our situation more positively, our ability to experience gratitude, and our choice to be kind and generous.”

 

“The more time you spend thinking about yourself, the more suffering you will experience.”

 

“The Dead Sea in the Middle East receives fresh water, but it has no outlet, so it doesn’t pass the water out. It receives beautiful water from the rivers, and the water goes dank. I mean, it just goes bad. And that’s why it is the Dead Sea. It receives and does not give. In the end generosity is the best way of becoming more, more, and more joyful.”

 

“Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.”

 

“Marriages, even the best ones—perhaps especially the best ones—are an ongoing process of spoken and unspoken forgiveness.”

 

“We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people. When it comes to personal happiness there is a lot that we as individuals can do.”

 

“When you are grateful,’ Brother Steindl-Rast explained, ‘you are not fearful, and when you are not fearful, you are not violent. When you are grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not out of a sense of scarcity, and you are willing to share. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people and respectful to all people. The grateful world is a world of joyful people. Grateful people are joyful people. A grateful world is a happy world.”

 

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear more times than I can remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

 

“I think that the scientists are right,” the Dalai Lama concluded. “People who are always laughing have a sense of abandon and ease. They are less likely to have a heart attack than those people who are really serious and who have difficulty connecting with other people. Those serious people are in real danger.”

 

“Much depends on your attitude. If you are filled with negative judgment and anger, then you will feel separate from other people. You will feel lonely. But if you have an open heart and are filled with trust and friendship, even if you are physically alone, even living a hermit’s life, you will never feel lonely.”

 

“We are wired to be caring for the other and generous to one another. We shrivel when we are not able to interact. I mean that is part of the reason why solitary confinement is such a horrendous punishment. We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are. (…) The concept of Ubuntu says: A person is a person through other persons.”

 

“You show your humanity by how you see yourself not as apart from others but from your connection to others.”

 

“One of my practices comes from an ancient Indian teacher. He taught that when you experience some tragic situation, think about it. If there’s no way to overcome the tragedy, then there is no use worrying too much. So I practice that. (The Dalai Lama was referring to the eighth-century Buddhist master Shantideva, who wrote, “If something can be done about the situation, what need is there for dejection? And if nothing can be done about it, what use is there for being dejected?”

 

“What the Dalai Lama and I are offering,” the Archbishop added, “is a way of handling your worries: thinking about others. You can think about others who are in a similar situation or perhaps even in a worse situation, but who have survived, even thrived. It does help quite a lot to see yourself as part of a greater whole.” Once again, the path of joy was connection and the path of sorrow was separation. When we see others as separate, they become a threat. When we see others as part of us, as connected, as interdependent, then there is no challenge we cannot face—together.”

 

“Joy is the reward, really, of seeking to give joy to others. When you show compassion, when you show caring, when you show love to others, do things for others, in a wonderful way you have a deep joy that you can get in no other way. You can’t buy it with money. You can be the richest person on Earth, but if you care only about yourself, I can bet my bottom dollar you will not be happy and joyful. But when you are caring, compassionate, more concerned about the welfare of others than about your own, wonderfully, wonderfully, you suddenly feel a warm glow in your heart, because you have, in fact, wiped the tears from the eyes of another.”

 

“If you are setting out to be joyful you are not going to end up being joyful. You’re going to find yourself turned in on yourself. It’s like a flower. You open, you blossom, really because of other people. And I think some suffering, maybe even intense suffering, is a necessary ingredient for life, certainly for developing compassion.”

 

“There are going to be frustrations in life. The question is not: How do I escape? It is: How can I use this as something positive?”

 

“Discovering more joy does not, save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreaks without being broken.” 

My Take

I really enjoyed The Book of Joy, especially its focus on gratitude and kindness as the cornerstones of a joyful life.  I completely agree with this sentiment.  In fact, I believe that you cannot be happy unless you are grateful and that envy is a killer of joy and happiness.  I also appreciated that both the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu emphasized that suffering is not the enemy of joy.  In fact, suffering allows us to gain compassion for others and, in the end, can increase our own joy.  A thought provoking book with lots of practical applications for increasing your own joy and happiness.

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296. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Ben Shapiro

Author:   Greg Lukianoff,  Jonathan Haidt

Genre:  Non Fiction, Public Policy, Education, Philosophy, Psychology, Parenting

352 pages, published September 4, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

The Coddling of the American Mind by First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt, explores significant changes in what the authors refer to as the iGeneration (also known as Generation Z), who are comprised of kids and young adults born after 1995.  This is the first generation to grow up with smart phones (and other digital devises) as a constant presence in their lives.  This generation has also been raised with much more attentive and safety conscious parents than any previous generation.  The combination of these factors has led to a culture of “safetyism” which has resulted in a campus assault on free speech and what that means for kids and our country.  According to the authors, iGeneration has been taught three Great Untruths: their feelings are always right; they should avoid pain and discomfort; and they should look for faults in others and not themselves. These three Great Untruths are part of a larger philosophy that sees young people as fragile creatures who must be protected and supervised by adults. But despite the good intentions of the adults who impart them, the Great Untruths are harming kids by teaching them the opposite of ancient wisdom and the opposite of modern psychological findings on grit, growth, and antifragility. The result is rising rates of depression and anxiety, along with endless stories of college campuses torn apart by moralistic divisions and mutual recriminations.

Quotes 

“From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.”

 

“But efforts to protect kids from risk by preventing them from gaining experience— such as walking to school, climbing a tree, or using sharp scissors— are different. Such protections come with costs, as kids miss out on opportunities to learn skills, independence, and risk assessment.”

 

“Grant offers the following four rules for productive disagreement:10 Frame it as a debate, rather than a conflict. Argue as if you’re right, but listen as if you’re wrong (and be willing to change your mind). Make the most respectful interpretation of the other person’s perspective. Acknowledge where you agree with your critics and what you’ve learned from them.”

 

“A culture that allows the concept of “safety” to creep so far that it equates emotional discomfort with physical danger is a culture that encourages people to systematically protect one another from the very experiences embedded in daily life that they need in order to become strong and healthy.”

 

“But efforts to protect kids from risk by preventing them from gaining experience— such as walking to school, climbing a tree, or using sharp scissors— are different. Such protections come with costs, as kids miss out on opportunities to learn skills, independence, and risk assessment.”

 

“there are just two activities that are significantly correlated with depression and other suicide-related outcomes (such as considering suicide, making a plan, or making an actual attempt): electronic device use (such as a smartphone, tablet, or computer) and watching TV. On the other hand, there are five activities that have inverse relationships with depression (meaning that kids who spend more hours per week on these activities show lower rates of depression): sports and other forms of exercise, attending religious services, reading books and other print media, in-person social interactions, and doing homework.”

 

“parenting strategies and laws that make it harder for kids to play on their own pose a serious threat to liberal societies by flipping our default setting from “figure out how to solve this conflict on your own” to “invoke force and/or third parties whenever conflict arises.” 

My Take

I found The Coddling of the American Mind to be a fascinating inquiry into what has turned many of the young adults in our country into the “snowflake” generation who are afraid of micro aggressions, being exposed to speech they disagree with, and anything else that threatens the cocoon of safety they were raised to expect by their overindulgent, protective parents.   In addition to diagnosing the problem, Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions and encourage diversity of viewpoint.  I have already raised my kids for the most part (they are currently 20 and 17 and right in the middle of the iGeneration), but am pleased to see that they are not snowflakes who will melt at the first differing opinion they encounter.  That is partly due to the fact that we are conservatives in one of the bluest counties (Boulder, Colorado) in the country.  My children grew up surrounded by people who disagreed with our political viewpoints.  That was extremely beneficial for them.  They were constantly challenged on their beliefs and had to deliberate and think about why they believed what they did rather than exist in an echo chamber that validated their every view.  Consequently, they are very experienced at hearing viewpoints that differ from their own and have no problem engaging with others on a myriad of topics without taking offense.

 

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293. The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Alli Angulo

Author:   Florence Williams

Genre:  Non Fiction, Science, Psychology, Health, Environment

304 pages, published October 20, 2005

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

In The Nature Fix, Florence Williams investigates the science behind nature’s positive effects on the brain.  In her quest to discover the beneficial impact of nature, Williams’s research takes her to Korea, Finland, and California.  She discovers that the natural world has incredible powers to improve health, promote reflection and innovation, and strengthen our relationships.

Quotes 

“Annie Dillard once said, how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.”

 

“Here are some of the essential take-homes: we all need nearby nature: we benefit cognitively and psychologically from having trees, bodies of water, and green spaces just to look at; we should be smarter about landscaping our schools, hospitals, workplaces and neighborhoods so everyone gains. We need quick incursions to natural areas that engage our senses. Everyone needs access to clean, quiet and safe natural refuges in a city. Short exposures to nature can make us less aggressive, more creative, more civic minded and healthier overall. For warding off depression, lets go with the Finnish recommendation of five hours a month in nature, minimum. But as the poets, neuroscientists and river runners have shown us, we also at times need longer, deeper immersions into wild spaces to recover from severe distress, to imagine our futures and to be our best civilized selves.”

 

“We don’t experience natural environments enough to realize how restored they can make us feel, nor are we aware that studies also show they make us healthier, more creative, more empathetic and more apt to engage with the world and with each other. Nature, it turns out, is good for civilization.”

 

“We don’t experience natural environments enough to realize how restored they can make us feel, nor are we aware that studies also show they make us healthier, more creative, more empathetic and more apt to engage with the world and with each other. Nature, it turns out, is good for civilization.”

 

“Beginning in the early 1980s, Stephen and Rachel Kaplan at the University of Michigan noticed that psychological distress was often related to mental fatigue. They speculated that our constant daily treadmill of tasks was wearing out our frontal lobes.”

 

“people are happiest when they are well enmeshed in community and friendships, have their basic survival needs met, and keep their minds stimulated and engaged, often in the service of some sort of cause larger than themselves.”

 

“Among his dozens of influential studies are those showing that exercise causes new brain cells to grow, especially in areas related to memory, executive function and spatial perception. Before Kramer’s work, no one really believed physical activity could lead to such clear and important effects. Now people everywhere are routinely told that exercise is the single best way to prevent aging-related cognitive decline. Kramer’s studies helped change the way the profession”

 

“The difference in joy respondents felt in urban versus natural settings (especially coastal environments) was greater than the difference they experienced from being alone versus being with friends, and about the same as doing favored activities like singing and sports versus not doing those things. Yet, remarkably, the respondents, like me, were rarely caught outside. Ninety-three percent of the time, they were either indoors or in vehicles.”

 

“The idea of solvitur ambulando (in walking it will be solved) has been around since St. Augustine, but well before that Aristotle thought and taught while walking the open-air parapets of the Lyceum. It has long been believed that walking in restorative settings could lead not only to physical vigor but to mental clarity and even bursts of genius, inspiration (with its etymology in breathing) and overall sanity. As French academic Frederic Gros writes in A Philosophy of Walking, it’s simply “the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found.” Jefferson walked to clear his mind, while Thoreau and Nietzsche, like Aristotle, walked to think. “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking,” wrote Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols. And Rousseau wrote in Confessions, “I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.” 

My Take

The Nature Fix confirmed something that I have long suspected to be true.  There are significant psychic and physical benefits to spending time in nature and the absence of time in the great outdoors can have deleterious effects on human beings.  And the more time spent outside, the better.  Not groundbreaking, but a good reminder to spend time in nature every day.

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277. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Jordan Peterson

Genre:  Non Fiction, Psychology, Philosophy, Self Improvement

448 pages, published January 23, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In 12 Rules for Life, celebrated Psychologist Jordan B. Peterson digs into some of the most difficult questions we face as human beings and provides a pragmatic blueprint on how to live your life.  He does so with references to biblical texts, historic philosophers (including Nietzsche and Soccrates) and cutting-edge scientific research.

Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life are:

  1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back
  2. Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
  3. Make friends with people who want the best for you
  4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
  5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
  6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
  7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
  8. Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie
  9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t
  10. Be precise in your speech
  11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
  12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

Quotes 

“To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please God, in the ancient language).”

 

“So, attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them—at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence.”

 

“The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity.”

 

“Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found.”

 

“We require routine and tradition. That’s order. Order can become excessive, and that’s not good, but chaos can swamp us, so we drown— and that is also not good. We need to stay on the straight and narrow path.”

 

“Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.”

 

“To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause: that is Hell.”

 

“Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your Being. As the great nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche so brilliantly noted, “He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.”

 

“It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order. If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons.”

 

“We must each adopt as much responsibility as possible for individual life, society and the world. We must each tell the truth and repair what is in disrepair and break down and recreate what is old and outdated. It is in this manner that we can and must reduce the suffering that poisons the world. It’s asking a lot. It’s asking for everything.”

 

“And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.”

 

“In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion- and even nation-centred cultures, partly to decrease the danger of group conflict. But we are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness, and that is no improvement at all.”

 

“Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence.”

 

“Intolerance of others’ views (no matter how ignorant or incoherent they may be) is not simply wrong; in a world where there is no right or wrong, it is worse: it is a sign you are embarrassingly unsophisticated or, possibly, dangerous.”

 

“We deserve some respect. You deserve some respect. You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself. You should take care of, help and be good to yourself the same way you would take care of, help and be good to someone you loved and valued. You may therefore have to conduct yourself habitually in a manner that allows you some respect for your own Being—and fair enough. But every person is deeply flawed. Everyone falls short of the glory of God. If that stark fact meant, however, that we had no responsibility to care, for ourselves as much as others, everyone would be brutally punished all the time. That would not be good. That would make the shortcomings of the world, which can make everyone who thinks honestly question the very propriety of the world, worse in every way. That simply cannot be the proper path forward.”

 

“loving your neighbour as yourself.” The first lesson was that neither of these statements has anything to do with being nice. The second was that both are equations, rather than injunctions. If I am someone’s friend, family member, or lover, then I am morally obliged to bargain as hard on my own behalf as they are on theirs. If I fail to do so, I will end up a slave, and the other person a tyrant. What good is that?”

 

“So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.”

 

“You must determine where you are going in your life, because you cannot get there unless you move in that direction. Random wandering will not move you forward. It will instead disappoint and frustrate you and make you anxious and unhappy and hard to get along with (and then resentful, and then vengeful, and then worse).”

 

“It is my firm belief that the best way to fix the world—a handyman’s dream, if ever there was one—is to fix yourself,”

 

“It is far better to render Beings in your care competent than to protect them.”

 

“The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.”

 

“Mark Twain once said, “It’s not what we don’t know that gets us in trouble. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”

 

“If your life is not what it could be, try telling the truth. If you cling desperately to an ideology, or wallow in nihilism, try telling the truth. If you feel weak and rejected, and desperate, and confused, try telling the truth. In Paradise, everyone speaks the truth. That is what makes it Paradise. Tell the truth. Or, at least, don’t lie.”

 

“Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.”

 

“Stop saying those things that make you weak and ashamed. Say only those things that make you strong. Do only those things that you could speak of with honour.”

 

“It is better, proverbially, to rule your own spirit than to rule a city.”

 

“Human female choosiness is also why we are very different from the common ancestor we shared with our chimpanzee cousins, while the latter are very much the same. Women’s proclivity to say no, more than any other force, has shaped our evolution into the creative, industrious, upright, large-brained (competitive, aggressive, domineering) creatures that we are.  It is Nature as Woman who says, “Well, bucko, you’re good enough for a friend, but my experience of you so far has not indicated the suitability of your genetic material for continued propagation.”

 

“Here’s a straightforward initial idea: rules should not be multiplied beyond necessity. Alternatively stated, bad laws drive out respect for good laws. This is the ethical—even legal—equivalent of Occam’s razor, the scientist’s conceptual guillotine, which states that the simplest possible hypothesis is preferable.”

 

“A naively formulated goal transmutes, with time, into the sinister form of the life-lie. One forty-something client told me his vision, formulated by his younger self: “I see myself retired, sitting on a tropical beach, drinking margaritas in the sunshine.” That’s not a plan. That’s a travel poster. After eight margaritas, you’re fit only to await the hangover. After three weeks of margarita-filled days, if you have any sense, you’re bored stiff and self-disgusted. In a year, or less, you’re pathetic. It’s just not a sustainable approach to later life. This kind of oversimplification and falsification is particularly typical of ideologues. They adopt a single axiom: government is bad, immigration is bad, capitalism is bad, patriarchy is bad. Then they filter and screen their experiences and insist ever more narrowly that everything can be explained by that axiom. They believe, narcissistically, underneath all that bad theory, that the world could be put right, if only they held the controls.”

 

“Sometimes, when people have a low opinion of their own worth—or, perhaps, when they refuse responsibility for their lives—they choose a new acquaintance, of precisely the type who proved troublesome in the past. Such people don’t believe that they deserve any better—so they don’t go looking for it. Or, perhaps, they don’t want the trouble of better. Freud called this a “repetition compulsion.” He thought of it as an unconscious drive to repeat the horrors of the past—sometimes, perhaps, to formulate those horrors more precisely, sometimes to attempt more active mastery and sometimes, perhaps, because no alternatives beckon. People create their worlds with the tools they have directly at hand. Faulty tools produce faulty results. Repeated use of the same faulty tools produces the same faulty results. It is in this manner that those who fail to learn from the past doom themselves to repeat it. It’s partly fate. It’s partly inability. It’s partly … unwillingness to learn? Refusal to learn? Motivated refusal to learn?”

 

“If a child has not been taught to behave properly by the age of four, it will forever be difficult for him or her to make friends.”

 

“When my now-adult daughter was a child, another child once hit her on the head with a metal toy truck. I watched that same child, one year later, viciously push his younger sister backwards over a fragile glass-surfaced coffee table. His mother picked him up, immediately afterward (but not her frightened daughter), and told him in hushed tones not to do such things, while she patted him comfortingly in a manner clearly indicative of approval. She was out to produce a little God-Emperor of the Universe. That’s the unstated goal of many a mother, including many who consider themselves advocates for full gender equality. Such women will object vociferously to any command uttered by an adult male, but will trot off in seconds to make their progeny a peanut-butter sandwich if he demands it while immersed self-importantly in a video game. The future mates of such boys have every reason to hate their mothers-in-law. Respect for women? That’s for other boys, other men—not for their dear sons.”

 

“You might consider judging your success across all the games you play. Imagine that you are very good at some, middling at others, and terrible at the remainder. Perhaps that’s how it should be. You might object: I should be winning at everything! But winning at everything might only mean that you’re not doing anything new or difficult. You might be winning but you’re not growing, and growing might be the most important form of winning. Should victory in the present always take precedence over trajectory across time?” 

My Take

While it is a longish, somewhat dense book, I found myself quickly reading through Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.  I could not put it down.  Peterson has a lot to say about the proper way to lead your life and I found myself agreeing with many of his admonitions and insights.  This is a book that I am still thinking about, several weeks after finishing.  Highly recommended.

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260. Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Adam Grant

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Business, Psychology, Self Improvement

326 pages, published February 2, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

In Originals, author Adam Grant studies different types of originality and explores how can to develop new ideas, policies, and practices while minimizing risk.  Grant relates anecdotes from the worlds of business, politics, sports, and entertainment and investigates how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt.  He also discusses how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent.

 

Quotes 

“Argue like you’re right and listen like you’re wrong.”

 

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world,” E. B. White once wrote. “This makes it difficult to plan the day.”

 

“To become original, you have to try something new, which means accepting some measure of risk.”

 

“If originals aren’t reliable judges of the quality of their ideas, how do they maximize their odds of creating a masterpiece? They come up with a large number of ideas. Simonton finds that on average, creative geniuses weren’t qualitatively better in their fields than their peers. They simply produced a greater volume of work, which gave them more variation and a higher chance of originality. “The odds of producing an influential or successful idea,” Simonton notes, are “a positive function of the total number of ideas generated.”

 

“Timing accounted for forty-two percent of the difference between success and failure.”

 

“Having a sense of security in one realm gives us the freedom to be original in another.”

 

“In the deepest sense of the word, a friend is someone who sees more potential in you than you see in yourself, someone who helps you become the best version of yourself.”

 

“Procrastination may be the enemy of productivity, but it can be a resource for creativity.”

 

“Overall, the evidence suggests that liking continues to increase as people are exposed to an idea between ten and twenty times, with additional exposure still useful for more complex ideas.”

 

“Being original doesn’t require being first. It just means being different and better.”

 

“Shapers” are independent thinkers: curious, non-conforming, and rebellious. They practice brutal, nonhierarchical honesty. And they act in the face of risk, because their fear of not succeeding exceeds their fear of failing.”

 

“If we communicate the vision behind our ideas, the purpose guiding our products, people will flock to us.”

 

“When we use the logic of consequence, we can always find reasons not to take risks.”

 

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

 

“The least favorite students were the non-conformists who made up their own rules. Teachers tend to discriminate against highly creative students, labeling them as troublemakers.”

 

“This explains why we often undercommunicate our ideas. They’re already so familiar to us that we underestimate how much exposure an audience needs to comprehend and buy into them.”

 

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” George Bernard Shaw”

 

“People who suffer the most from a given state of affairs are paradoxically the least likely to question, challenge, reject, or change it.”

 

“Entrepreneurs who kept their day jobs had 33 percent lower odds of failure than those who quit. If you’re risk averse and have some doubts about the feasibility of your ideas, it’s likely that your business will be built to last. If you’re a freewheeling gambler, your startup is far more fragile. Like the Warby Parker crew, the entrepreneurs whose companies topped Fast Company’s recent most innovative lists typically stayed in their day jobs even after they launched. Former track star Phil Knight started selling running shoes out of the trunk of his car in 1964, yet kept working as an accountant until 1969. After inventing the original Apple I computer, Steve Wozniak started the company with Steve Jobs in 1976 but continued working full time in his engineering job at Hewlett-Packard until 1977. And although Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin figured out how to dramatically improve internet searches in 1996, they didn’t go on leave from their graduate studies at Stanford until 1998. “We almost didn’t start Google,” Page says, because we “were too worried about dropping out of our Ph.D. program.” In 1997, concerned that their fledgling search engine was distracting them from their research, they tried to sell Google for less than $2 million in cash and stock. Luckily for them, the potential buyer rejected the offer. This habit of keeping one’s day job isn’t limited to successful entrepreneurs. Many influential creative minds have stayed in full-time employment or education even after earning income from major projects. Selma director Ava DuVernay made her first three films while working in her day job as a publicist, only pursuing filmmaking full time after working at it for four years and winning multiple awards. Brian May was in the middle of doctoral studies in astrophysics when he started playing guitar in a new band, but he didn’t drop out until several years later to go all in with Queen. Soon thereafter he wrote “We Will Rock You.” Grammy winner John Legend released his first album in 2000 but kept working as a management consultant until 2002, preparing PowerPoint presentations by day while performing at night. Thriller master Stephen King worked as a teacher, janitor, and gas station attendant for seven years after writing his first story, only quitting a year after his first novel, Carrie, was published. Dilbert author Scott Adams worked at Pacific Bell for seven years after his first comic strip hit newspapers. Why did all these originals play it safe instead of risking it all?”

 

My Take

Not surprisingly, there were some original (and counterintuitive) ideas in Originals.  I was surprised to learn that many of the most successful entrepreneurs were people who kept their day jobs rather than throwing everything they had at their new idea.  It was also interesting to learn that the sheer volume of ideas created led to more original and viable outcomes (this is similar to the argument made by the author of Peak that geniuses are created rather than born).  While not super-compelling, there are some interesting ideas in Originals that are worth a read.

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245. Man’s Search for Meaning

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Viktor E. Frankl

Genre:  Non Fiction, Memoir, Psychology, Philosophy, History

184 pages, published 1946

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir is a classic depiction of his life and survival in a series of Nazi death camps.  Frankl lost his parents, brother, and pregnant wife to the Nazi’s, but still managed to find meaning and purpose in his life and to go on living after the end of the war.  In fact, he did more than that, developing a psychological framework called logotherapy. Logotherapy is based on the premise that human beings are motivated by a “will to meaning,” an inner pull to find a meaning in life and includes the following principles: Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones: Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life; and We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering.

 

Quotes 

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

 

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

 

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

 

“But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”

 

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

 

“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”

 

“Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.”

 

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”

 

“I do not forget any good deed done to me and I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.”

 

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how”.”

 

“Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of the their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”

 

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”

 

“The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?  No, thank you,’ he will think. ‘Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy.”

 

“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”

 

“It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.”

 

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”

 

“A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes – within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.”

 

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

 

“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

 

“I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsiblity on the West Coast.”

 

“Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.”

 

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”

 

“But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual’s value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler’s program, that is to say, ‘mercy’ killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch.”

 

My Take

At the time of Viktor Frankl’s death in 1997, his hugely influential book Man’s Search for Meaning had sold more than 10 million copies in 24 languages and the Library of Congress found it to be among the ten most influential books in America.  I was horrified by Frankl’s depiction of the Holocaust, but moved by his description of courage, dignity, and compassion among some of the men he encountered in the concentration camps.  I was also inspired by his analysis that no matter what your circumstances, you always have a choice and how we choose reflects on our humanity.

 

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218. The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Author:  Dave Kerpen

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Business, Self Improvement, Psychology

288 pages, March15, 2016

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

In The Art of People, author Dave Kerpen provides straightforward, sensible advice in pithy chapters laced with relevant anecdotes.  His focus is on building relationships and truly understanding and connecting with your colleagues, customers, and partners.  He covers ideas such as:

  • The single most important question you can ever ask to win attention in a meeting
  • The one simple key to networking that nobody talks about
  • How to remain top of mind for thousands of people, everyday
  • Why it usually pays to be the one to give the bad news
  • How to blow off the right people
  • And why, when in doubt, buy him a Bonsai

 

Quotes 

“However, when you’re accountable to too many people, it’s like being accountable to no one. Thus, the best scenario is to find one accountability partner who can help you and whom you can help.”

 

“The problem with sharing accomplishments on social media (aka bragging), however, is there’s no tone or body language to help convey your meaning, and that means it’s very easy for people to lose the context and not get your intention right.”

 

“After conducting years of research on the most effective and least effective traits of leaders, Bell advised leaders to “listen like children watch TV.”

 

“People in general don’t want advice even when they ask for it. They just want to feel heard.”

 

“There’s no better way to show that you care about the person you’re meeting with than to genuinely, authentically ask her what you can do to help.”

 

“It’s not my job to teach you. It’s your job to learn. I’m just here to coach you along the way,” Doc would say to us on a typical day. He was one part teacher, one part coach, and one part cheerleader—always positive, helpful, and encouraging.”

 

“Many people are so afraid to get a “no” that they don’t ask for a “yes.” The ironic thing here is that they’re virtually guaranteeing getting a “no” by not asking for a “yes.”

 

My Take

The Art of People is a modern update of the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, which I found to be an extremely useful book.  Like that classic how-to, The Art of People contains numerous tips and sound advice on how to interact with others in a genuine way to create win-win situations.  Some of it is common sense, but there were enough new suggestions for me to recommend this book.

 

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214. 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Author:  Dan Harris

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Self-Improvement, Happiness, Psychology, Memoir, Philosophy

256 pages, published March 11, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

10% Happier chronicles journalist Dan Harris’ journey of self discovery after having a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America.  Harris explores the worlds of neuroscience, meditation, and network news and comes out the other end with increased calm, focus, and happiness.

 

Quotes 

“Everything in the world is ultimately unsatisfying and unreliable because it won’t last.”

“Make the present moment your friend rather than your enemy. Because many people live habitually as if the present moment were an obstacle that they need to overcome in order to get to the next moment. And imagine living your whole life like that, where always this moment is never quite right, not good enough because you need to get to the next one. That is continuous stress.”

 

“But it was in this moment, lying in bed late at night, that I first realized that the voice in my head—the running commentary that had dominated my field of consciousness since I could remember—was kind of an asshole.”

 

“The Buddha captured it well when he said that anger, which can be so seductive at first, has “a honeyed tip” but a “poisoned root.”

 

“The ego is never satisfied. No matter how much stuff we buy, no matter how many arguments we win or delicious meals we consume, the ego never feels complete.”

 

“the Buddha’s main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won’t last.”

 

“What mindfulness does is create some space in your head so you can, as the Buddhists say, “respond” rather than simply “react.” In the Buddhist view, you can’t control what comes up in your head; it all arises out of a mysterious void. We spend a lot of time judging ourselves harshly for feelings that we had no role in summoning. The only thing you can control is how you handle it.”

 

“We live so much of our lives pushed forward by these “if only” thoughts, and yet the itch remains. The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.”

 

“Don’t you ever get pissed off, annoyed, irritated, sad—anything negative?” “No, I accept what is. And that’s why life has become so simple.” “Well, what if somebody cuts you off in your car?” “It’s fine. It’s like a sudden gust of wind. I don’t personalize a gust of wind, and so it’s simply what is.”

 

“The fact that you exist is a highly statistically improbable event, and if you are not perpetually surprised by the fact that you exist you don’t deserve to be here.”

 

“Perhaps the most meaningful exchange I had on the subject was a completely random discussion with my uncle Martin at my parents’ annual summer pool party. Martin, a former entrepreneur who was now in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, turned to me and asked an intriguing question: “Which is more exciting to you? Reality or memory?” I paused, considered it, and said, “I wish I could say reality, but it’s probably memory.” And then I asked, “What about you?” At which point Martin stared blankly back at me and asked, “What was the question?”

 

“Striving is fine, as long as it’s tempered by the realization that, in an entropic universe, the final outcome is out of your control. If you don’t waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. When you are wisely ambitious, you do everything you can to succeed, but you are not attached to the outcome—so that if you fail, you will be maximally resilient, able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fray. That, to use a loaded term, is enlightened self-interest.”

 

“There’s no point in being unhappy about things you can’t change, and no point being unhappy about things you can.”

 

“Marturano recommended something radical: do only one thing at a time. When you’re on the phone, be on the phone. When you’re in a meeting, be there. Set aside an hour to check your email, and then shut off your computer monitor and focus on the task at hand. Another tip: take short mindfulness breaks throughout the day. She called them “purposeful pauses.” So, for example, instead of fidgeting or tapping your fingers while your computer boots up, try to watch your breath for a few minutes. When driving, turn off the radio and feel your hands on the wheel. Or when walking between meetings, leave your phone in your pocket and just notice the sensations of your legs moving. “If I’m a corporate samurai,” I said, “I’d be a little worried about taking all these pauses that you recommend because I’d be thinking, ‘Well, my rivals aren’t pausing. They’re working all the time.’ ” “Yeah, but that assumes that those pauses aren’t helping you. Those pauses are the ways to make you a more clear thinker and for you to be more focused on what’s important.”

 

“She nailed the method for applying mindfulness in acute situations, albeit with a somewhat dopey acronym: RAIN. R: recognize A: allow I: investigate N: non-identification”

 

“When you have one foot in the future and the other in the past, you piss on the present.”

 

“Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel.”

 

My Take

I listened to the audio version of 10% Happier (read by the author) and enjoyed Dan Harris’ easygoing and honest style.  He seemed like a very decent guy and I was happy to accompany him on his quest for inner peace.  Along the way, I picked up some good happiness tips, especially on the value of meditation and the importance of living in the present moment.

 

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Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Gretchen Rubin

Authors:  Suzann Pileggi Pawelski, James O. Pawelski

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Psychology, Self Improvement, Happiness

343 pages, published January 16, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Happy Together is written by Suzann Pileggi Pawelski and James O. Pawelski, a husband and wife team who specialize in the field of Positive Psychology.  In their book, the Pawelski present the concept of Aristotelian love, i.e. seeing the good in your partner and being motivated by that goodness to improve yourself, as the ideal in relationships.  Happy Together focuses on develop key habits for building and sustaining long-term love by promoting a healthy passion, prioritizing positive emotions, mindfully savoring experiences together, and seeking out strengths in each other.

 

Quotes 

The PERMA model of flourishing, for example, consists of five elements of a fulfilling life.  Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment.  Relationships, of course, are right at the center of PERMA.  Indeed, relationships may be the most important part of a happy and flourishing life.

 

My Take

As my friends and family are well aware, I am very interested in the topic of happiness and actively try to structure my life in a manner that will increase my happiness.  As such, I read a lot of books on the subject of happiness and was very interested in reading Happy Together after seeing it recommended by best-selling author (The Happiness Project, Happier at Home, Better than Before, The Four Tendencies) and happiness guru Gretchen Rubin (who has had a huge impact on the way I live my life).  I liked, but did not love, Happy Together.  When I read a book like this, I like to have a lot of practical tips as takeaways.  There were a few that I will try to implement.  Namely, the importance of taking time to savor positive experiences in your relationship and expressing gratitude to your partner on a regular basis with the emphasis on them.  I also liked a metaphor that the authors use of a superpower cape with a red side and a green side.  The red side helps you fix problems in your relationship while the green side helps you engage in actions that improve a relationship by creating and sustaining happiness, satisfaction and enjoyment in a relationship.  It has inspired me to try to focus on the green side of the cape!

 

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